stitchxstitch

Fifteen Minute Challenge with Kate

2012-02-28T10:15:00.000-06:00

A couple of weeks ago, I decided that I needed Kate's 15 minute challenge to keep me motivated to work in my quilting room. She explains it here: http://kate-life-in-pieces.blogspot.com/2012/02/15-minute-challenge-february-28th.html. Well, I didn't realize that I would actually have to keep track of the time I spent! LOL Of course, that's what it's all about--the idea is that when I look at what I've done, I'll be motivated to keep at it.

Since I decided to do this, I''ve spent some time in the sewing room every day except on the weekends--and in the evenings after work. That leaves only 3 days in the week when I've quilted. Not a very good start. The good thing is that when I go to the sewing room, I'm there for HOURS, not minutes! On the days when I've quilted, it's been for 4 or more hours at a time, so I'm making very good progress on Lily's quilt.

Here's my progress report: Mon--several hours; Tues--several hours; Wed and Thurs (work days)--nothing; Fri-several hours; Saturday and Sunday (weekend visitors) -not a stitch.

That's what I'm working on now, a Disappearing 4 Patch twin-sized quilt for my 8 year old granddaughter.

I started this last fall and the poor child has gone all winter with her old blankets while I've ~~farted~~ fooled around with it. Now I'm doing the actual quilting and have nearly finished the center part--with luck I'll get that done today and be ready to move on to the borders. I'm doing a "fancy" design in each block and am using Golden Threads paper. That means I have to stop and tear off the paper after I've stitched each block--so time consuming! But the borders and the sashings will be done FMQ so it should go a bit faster.

That's my week's report on Kate's Fifteen Minute Challen ge.

Fifteen Minute Challenge

2012-02-10T11:43:00.000-06:00

I just discovered Kate's blog here http://kate-life-in-pieces.blogspot.com/ and thought I'd join her 15 minute challenge. Maybe this will get me in gear to spend more time at the sewing machine and less in front of the TV! Anyway, she's having a giveway to celebrate one year of the 15 minute challenge and I want to win it! I love charm packs but don't have great ideas on how to use them so this book would be a great addition to my quilting library. Like I really need another book! (Groan)

A couple of weeks ago, we rearranged the basement storage area so hubby could work on remodeling part of the basement into a "nice" exercise room. I had to bring bins of my quilting and knitting stuff up to my sewing room--at least temporarily. I can hardly move in that room now and I have to use up more stuff so I have space. If I spend a little time each day working on projects, I may get enough cleared out to have room in there again.

I use the small spare bedroom to sew in and there's a queen sized bed in there as well as all my sewing stuff. Take a look at the chaos!

My fabric stash

My sewing table with quilting in progress

More bins of stuff next to the bed

After I re-read this post and looked at the pix, I think I'll need more than 15 minutes a day to work my way out of this mess! :)

Favorite Thing Friday

2012-02-10T11:03:00.000-06:00

I haven't posted about a FTF for a long time but today I found something that really excites me. If you want to know more about FTF, go to Shay's blog here: http://fairybreadmusings.blogspot.com/2012/02/favourite-things-friday_10.html.

I read my daughter's post this morning about the "Good Book." This Good Book is one that a person makes for themselves. It's a record of the good things that each of us have in our lives. As members of the human species,( at least most of us are :), we tend to focus on the negative things in our lives--the mistake in our quilting, the comment from a co-worker, the cake that flopped, the garden full of weeds, and on and on. I'm sure we all can come up with a lengthy list of these kinds of things.

In creating a Good Book, we focus on the positive things in our daily lives--the cookie fortune that is perfect, the flower that was exceptional, the smile from your partner in the morning, the dinner that was sooooo good, the scale telling you you're 5 pounds less than before, your child/grandchild telling you how much he loves you, etc. In creating a Good Book, you put these kinds of things --pix, cards, notes, and thoughts--in a journal that you keep at your bedside or purse or somewhere you'll see it daily. Everyday, you think of the positive things that occurred and make a note of that in the Good Book.

On those days when you feel like life is nothing but crap, the whole world is crazy, nothing you do ever turns out right, and "No one loves me!", you can go through your Good Book and realize that there are many, many good things in your life.

I will begin my Good Book today and make more effort to focus on the positive.

Three table runners

2012-01-31T09:35:00.000-06:00

I'm getting ready for a mini quilting class with my friends in So WI and they said they wanted to make a table runner and they wanted to work with triangles. (Last year we did squares and rectangles.) I worked off a Thimbleberries design and came up with three different runners that we can work on.

The first one in a Flying Geese design. Very simple and should be fairly easy to do.

Next I worked up an hourglass design. I like to cut my squares, mark one with a diagonal like, stitch 1/4" on either side of the line, and cut between the 2 lines of stitching. Not so much danger of stretching the bias edge.

And the third one is a pinwheel design I made up using the triangles I cut off the Flying Geese. I stitched 1/2" away from the FG line and cut between the 2 lines of stitching and had 2 extra HST from each goose. I set the pinwheels on point and added the setting triangles and added the border and it was done.

Now I have to make up a few sample blocks to demonstrate how to construct the blocks and I should be ready.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

January flew past me in a cold wind. After New Year's I got into the Recall Gov Walker effort big time. Half a dozen times I stood on various street corners with my sign and clipboard so people would know they could sign the petition. At the end, I received an email saying I'd been chosen to represent my county in Madison when the petitions were presented. I was absolutely thrilled and the day in Madison was amazing!

This is me getting my box of petitions to carry into the GAB to be registered. We needed 540,000 plus signatures to force a recall and no one knew how many people had signed. In the end, over a MILLION people had signed! That's amazing! The next step is to prepare for an election. If the people approve of our governor's actions, he'll be reelected; If the people don't approve, we'll have a new governor for the rest of the 4 year term.

2011 has been an amazing year for me and my husband, politically speaking, and 2012 promises to hold more of the same!

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T11:29:00.000-06:00

I've not done much reflecting on 2011 and what it held for me. Does that make me shallow? Maybe. I don't care. I've been too busy to be reflective. 2011 has been a life changing year for me. For the first time in my life I got off the couch and became active in politics. Began in February and on to the last day of the year, I was out in the cold and wind, sun and heat, taking signatures on the various recall petitions.

It was soooo cold and the wind was soooo strong yesterday that I wondered if it was worth it. Well, yes it was. Many people gave me a thumbs up as they drove by and some gave me a middle finger salute--but not as many as the thumbs up people. :-) Three people shouted to me that I should get a job--I have one. Once in the morning and once in the afternoon, strangers brought me a cup hot chocolate! So welcome! And one person rolled down her window and said, "Thank you for what you are doing for us all." Yeah, it was worth it when the last person to sign, I realized, was a young ex-Marine, likely an Iraq war vet, who thanked me for being there.

What I've learned this year is that we need to be active in our democracy if we want to continue to have a democracy. For some that may be signing an on-line petition, writing letters, helping register voters, or transporting voters to the polls. For others it means running for office, knocking on doors to talk with folks, and standing on the corner in the cold/rain/snow/wind/heat to give people the opportunity to sign a petition. Whatever your preference, you need to do it and to be active in our country. Doesn't matter what your political leanings--we all need to express ourselves. So, 2011 has been a year of activism for me.

Some of the blogs I read today list quilting and sewing accomplishments of the year. I don't keep track of what I do and I don't take pics of every project, so I can't list what I've done. As usual, I've done less than what I hoped I'd do and for 2012, I resolve to do more that I think I can do. We'll see about that. ;-0

I found this quote on Bonnie K Hunter's blog and I like it very much so I'll pass it on to you.

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.

So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art or love or work or family or life.
Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it. Make your mistakes, next year and forever.”-- Neil Gaiman

May your 2012 be happy, fruitful, healthy, and full of mistakes!

Happy Holidays

2011-12-25T19:36:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone! It's Christmas evening and the festivities are at a close. Frankly, I'm glad. I love Christmas and I love when it's over and I can get back to my normal life.

I've been super busy this year--working an extra day each week, working on politics, doing extra quilting for friends, sending a Christmas package to daughter Jo well ahead of time, and preparing for a pre-Christmas trip to Milwaukee with the family.

Everything was accomplished in good time and with good (?) grace. The trip to Milwaukee was fine--we toured the Mitchell Domes conservatory--such a beautiful place to go in the middle of the cold winter. We went to see the Milwaukee Rep's production of Dicken's "A Christmas Carol" and it was outstanding, as usual. The "kids" (I say that tongue in cheek since each is in his/her 30's) had their customary holiday quarrel while we were in Milwaukee so that was over and done with early in the season. We had our usual holiday foods, presents and customs. And tonight, granddaughter Lily is here with us as is son Dan and the house is quieting down.

I'm posting some pix that I've been taking but haven't had time to post. These are the placemats I made for Elaine in exchange for her sewing my bedroom draperies. I met her for lunch on the 19th and she seemed quite pleased with them.

I also made a couple of Christmas table tops, one for Elaine and the other for our friend, Judy, who joined us for lunch.

Here's a close up of the quilting--just an overall meander, easy peasy--and fast!

And I did get a few of the little Matryoshka ornaments made and gave one each to Judy and Elaine, and there was one in each sock on Christmas morning.

I loved making these little dollies and I have several more cut out, waiting to be sewn up. Maybe tonight while the football game is on.

So, the holiday is finished but good feelings remain in my heart. Next up comes my 40th wedding anniversary on the 28th and then my birthday in January. Will the celebrations never end????? LOL

I hope everyone who reads this has also had a wonderful holiday and that their annual family squabble didn't amount to anything serious.

Matryoska Christmas dolls

2011-12-12T10:42:00.001-06:00

I found these felt ornaments on Sam's blog, All Things Quilty and Sewy, (http://hand-quilter.blogspot.com/2011/12/matryoshka-christmas-tree-decorations.htmland).

They are so darn cute, I have to make a couple before Christmas, but I won't say which year. LOL Here are the directions: http://sewtospeak.blogspot.com/2010/11/aprils-mini-matryoshkas.html

I've had such a great week!

2011-12-11T11:03:00.000-06:00

So many "best things" happened, I don't know where to begin. How about work? Last week was the end of the Medicare open enrollment period so I worked my last 3 day week. Yea!!! I know, you're saying "Three day week???" Well, I'd gotten into the habit of working a 2 day week and then added a third day in mid-October to help with the crush of Medicare D clients who need help during this time. It was hard to adjust to working that extra day, especially since that day was filled to the brim with appointments, none of them easy situations to deal with and the 8 hour day usually stretched to 10. So, I'm glad to have survived and to return to only 2 days a week. Maybe I can get some quilting done?

Secondly, Christmas events. Thursday was Lily's holiday concert at school so Don and I were there, of course. This concert was for the kindergarten, first and second grades (The third, fourth and fifth graders have a spring concert.) Those little kids were so cute and sang so earnestly, all dressed up in their holiday clothes. Their director had them doing some things with very basic musical instruments and it was very sweet. The director has several elementary schools that he's assigned to and that's why, I suppose, that he has to split the grades into two concerts instead of having all the kids perform in each concert. It's too bad that the music and arts teachers are spread so thin but at least the kids get a little exposure.

After the concert, Don and I took Lily with us to run errands in the afternoon, giving Tessa some time to get schoolwork done--she'll finish the semester on the 19th. Yea! Then we picked up Tessa and went out for an early dinner at a pretty good Mexican restaurant in Menomonie named Cancun. I ordered "Pollo Crema" which was sooo good! Chicken breast covered with sauteed mushrooms and onions all in a cheesy creamy sauce. I'll definitely return and order that again.

After dinner, we dropped Don off at Tessa's house so he could rest his gouty foot, and us three ladies bundled up and went downtown for the Christmas parade. What a treat! It was colder than a well digger's butt but so much fun. The floats were all decorated in lights and had Christmas music pouring out of the speakers! Horses with jingle bells on their harnesses! Even the 3 wisemen were there riding a horse, a donkey and a real camel! There were dancers twirling and high stepping as they moved along the parade route. And candy pouring out for the children! OMG! Lily's bag was overflowing by the time the parade ended--and Tessa said she had only just finished up her Halloween candy! There's a big Swiss Miss plant in Menomonie so Lily got many packets of hot chocolate mix and pots of pudding from the SM folks.

On Friday afternoon, I picked up Lily and she's been at the house until just a few minutes ago. Yesterday afternoon, she and I went outside and (almost) finished the outside decorating. We have yet to find the rest of the red ribbons we always put on the front yard fence and there are no more to buy in the store so I hope to find them soon. This is a pix of the front entry:

I don't do a lot of decorating, just a bit of greenery and ribbon and a strand of lights on the pots on the left. It looks festive for folks driving by, day and night.

Lily and Don also set up the Christmas village that he got a few years ago. She loves to play with the village
--rearranging the snowmen and the carolers every time she's here. Next Saturday, we'll take Lily with us to the tree farm to choose the perfect tree for the living room. And she'll help decorate it as well which is fine with me since that's a job I really don't like doing. I love the final effect, but it such putsy work, that I'll let Lily and Don do that while I whip up a batch of cookies for them to enjoy when they're finished.

Now I have to get to my sewing room and finish the placemats I promised my friend, Elaine, in exchange for the draperies she's making for me. I also want to make a Christmas table runner for her as a surprise and since we're meeting on the 19th for lunch with our other friend, Judy, I want to have a runner for her as well.

ATTN: Thrifty shoppers and crocheters

2011-12-09T10:09:00.000-06:00

This video is for you. Your shopping and/or crocheting may never be the same!
http://vimeo.com/31424892

What's with binding?

2011-12-07T08:58:00.000-06:00

Sometimes I get very annoyed when I read blog entries. Today I read one about machine binding your quilts. Excuse me, but I've been of the school that bindings were machine stitched on the front and folded over and hand stitched on the back. Seems there's a new way that I've been hearing about but haven't tried.

When I read this person's entry this morning, I got very annoyed because "that's not the correct way to do it." (A little of my OCD showing ;-) ) As I read, I started to realize that times do change and maybe it was time to change my attitude about bindings. Just because I've always done it a certain way doesn't mean it has to be done that way, right? Actually, I'll be real honest here. On my first quilt, I simply folded the backing over to the front and hand stitched it down. I still have that quilt and have repaired that binding several times and everytime I look at the quilt,I regret not doing it the proper way.

I digress. Our grandmothers and great grandmothers hand pieced and hand quilted and some people still do that today. Does that mean its "not okay" to use the machine to piece and quilt as I do today? Of course not. We have adapted new methods of achieving the same results--a beautiful quilt. So why not use the machine to finish the binding?

Some of the examples I see of machine stitched bindings look very nice--using decorative stitches and variegated threads--and they add another element to the quilt. It seems easy enough to machine stitch the bindings although one person said it took a bit of practice before she mastered it. However, I don't know if I like the idea of doing another step of maneuvering the quilt through the machine one more time--after all, I usually make bed sized quilts or at least throw sized and that's a lot of wrestling when using a domestic machine!

I think I'll stay with hand sewing the final step of creating the quilt. I like to sit with the quilt on my lap, good movie on the TV, a fire in the stove and the soothing rhythm of stitch after stitch along the edge of the quilt. After struggling to move the quilt through the machine to cover it with quilting, this last, final step is the best part of the entire process for me. Very relaxing. I may change my attitude and machine stitch on a binding in the future and that will be okay, but for now, I look forward to having hand work to occupy me in the evening.

2011-12-03T16:01:00.000-06:00

As usual, I'm a bit late at things. I just read Sharon's post at http://vroomansquilts.blogspot.com/2011/12/occupy-your-sewing-room.html and realize I should have been occupying my sewing room instead of standing in the cold this morning collecting signatures to recall Gov. Walker.

I live in the country near a VERY small village in NW Wisconsin. Wisconsin is in the midst of a movement to recall Gov. Walker and force another election. This is a grassroots movement and people all over the state are coming out to sign the petitions. My experience this morning was so rewarding, I really can't explain--but I'll try.

A small group of us arranged to set up signature collecting stations in my town and two other small towns nearby. We stood on the street corner with our homemade signs, inviting folks to stop and sign the petition. The response was overwhelming! Many of the people paid no attention and ignored us as they drove by. A few shook their fingers at us in disapproval and three people actually gave us a one-finger salute with one person screaming at us to "GO F_ _ _ K YOURSELVES" as he rounded the corner. That was fun. But the majority of folks waved at us, yelled that they'd already signed, honked their horns, and/or gave us a thumbs-up as they passed by. Enough folks stopped to sign the petition to make it worthwhile.

Gathering signatures is really being part of democracy as is signing the petition. People are so glad to be able to express how they feel about our government--it's a thrill that can't be beat. Everybody should try it sometime.

So, instead of "occupying" my sewing room, I was "occupying" Prairie Farm and had a ball doing it. Now, I'm going to sew.

Hallelujah!

2011-11-27T11:27:00.000-06:00

Thanksgiving is finished--except for making soup out of the turkey carcass! And I'm saving that for tomorrow.  I had a great holiday with only the immediate family here this year. All the extended fam had made other plans and that was a good thing since I still have a large and (getting pretty) dirty bandage of my left hand. I used a latex glove to protect the food from the bandage and vice versa and it worked ok. Also, Tessa came out on Wed and she and I worked together very well and made all the traditional foods for the dinner and it was lovely. For the second year in a row, no sibling fights! Could this mean they are finally growing up? I'll not hold my breath but I'm optimistic.

Now my thoughts turn to Christmas. Youngest daughter, Jo, absolutely loves Christmas and she used to drive us crazy with her Christmas music beginning right after Halloween! And she would begin pestering Don and me to get the Christmas tree up the day after Thanksgiving.  That never happened since we get a live tree from the farm, but she still tried.

She's now in Bulgaria with the Peace Corps and this will be her first year so far away from home for the holidays with no relatives nearby. Her best friend from high school is teaching in France and the two ~~girls~~ young women are going to spend a couple of weeks travelling over the holidays. A few days in Paris to start, then a week or so (including Christmas day) in Edinburgh Scotland, then south to London where they'll see a performance of "A Christmas Carol." Boy, do I wish I was 25 again, footloose and fancy-free!

Anyway, Jo has a blog on blogspot and she recently posted this:  http://johannahauckbulgaria.blogspot.com/2011/11/may-spirit-of-christmas-bring-you-peace.html
A couple of years ago, my neice who is married to a bush pilot and lives in Alaska sent this YouTube for us to see. I loved it then and I loved seeing it again this morning. If anyone needs to get in the spirit of Christmas, I hope this helps.

With all the kids back in their seperate homes and Don tuned in to more football games (I have no idea how many he watched over the weekend, but I'm sure I'd have to take off my shoes and socks to count that high ;-) ), I'm going to spend the day in the sewing room and finish off the leftovers for dinner tonight.

Little Miss Cranky Pants

2011-11-17T09:22:00.000-06:00

That's me these days. Cranky to the max! And I don't know why. It could be the annual holiday stress season hitting me. I realized how stressed I get over the holidays when I quit smoking about 15 years ago. I would be fine the whole year and right about Thanksgiving time, I would start thinking about cigarettes, and looking at them in the store, and actually start craving them again. It would continue through Christmas and New Year's and then suddenly be gone. After that first year, I learned that I had been a stress-reducing smoker. Each year, the craving and obsessing would be less and after about 5 years, it was gone. But the stress remains, apparently.

Could I be cranky because Wisconsin is once again in political turmoil and I've plowed right into it, full speed. I'll be involved for the next couple of months in gathering signatures on the recall petitions and that's a stressful activity in itself. I meet Saturday with other volunteers to plan how we're going to hadle signature gathering in our little area of the woods.

Maybe I'm crabby because I'm having a second surgery on my wrists tomorrow, but I don't think so. The first one--on my dominant hand to boot--went very well and I'm very pleased with it. My left wrist isn't as bad so it should go even smoother, but still . . .

I'm particularly cranky at work. I love my job but I'd rather be back home, working on quilts, embroidering, cooking and baking and even cleaning, can you believe! I just want to nest in my home and be content. Don and I have done so much work on the house and yard and we're nearly finished with the entire house remodel, and the yard and gardens are as complete as landscaping ever is, and I want to spend more time there. I received a comment from a co-worker yesterday that didn't sit well with me at all. Something that indicated that the work I do here wasn't actually needed. Excuse me! I would NEVER say that to another worker about the work he/she does--it's all valuable work that the public appreciates very much.

At any rate, there are many reasons why I'm feeling so cranky and I'm not really sure what the true cause is--probably all of it. I just know that I don't like being Miss Cranky Pants and I have to correct this attitude and get over it. When my son was a preschooler and having a bad day, I would tell him to throw those old crankies out the window, and it helped. I should do the same. Maybe after the surgery tomorrow, I'll be better. Maybe a little Vicodin will help. LOL (Actually, that stuff is like a sugar pill for me--I've never felt any effect from it like others have. Tylenol is just as effective for me.)

Well, I feel better for having vented a bit about all of this. If anyone bothered to read all of this, I hope you have a great day and I intend on doing the same. OUT THE WINDOW, DAMN CRANKIES!!!

Doo, doo, doo, Looking out my back door

2011-11-10T20:42:00.001-06:00

Thanks, CCR, for the lyrics

(as well as for all your great music--loved it then and love it still).

This is "looking out my 'front' door" this AM. I spoke too soon yesterday, being thankful the storm was staying out of my area. NOT! While I still think this is a beautiful landscape to wake up to, I would prefer it to remain autumn a bit longer. Oh well, I can't control the weather so I'll make the best of it. If nothing else, it's good quilting weather and that's what I'll be doing tonight when I get home from work.

Poor little bush, all covered in the white fluffy stuff. You can't even tell its a barberry covered with thorns.

Snow-Embroidery-Voting-Pin Basting

2011-11-09T09:25:00.001-06:00

I just read Marcia's post about the first snowfall at her house, here: http://marciascraftysewing.blogspot.com/2011/11/outdoor-wednesday-in-wisconsin.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CraftySewingQuilting+%28Crafty+Sewing+%26amp%3B+Quilting%29
While I think her photos are beautiful--only a northern girl born and bred would appreciate pix of snow lol--I'm glad the storm is south of where I live. I'm just not ready for our beautiful Autumn to end yet.

I'm embroidering the little snowman wall hanging for the guild exchange next month and making quite speedy progress on it to boot. For the last 2 evenings I've been watching MSNBC after supper and while stitching, and I must say I was very pleased with the voting coverage last night, particularly in Ohio and Mississippi and Maine. In Wisconsin, we are beginning the Recall Walker campaign next week so my stitching and quilting may have to be put aside a bit as I work on that.

I brought 2 quilt tops, batting, and backing with me to work yesterday and after work, I laid them out on the tables in the meeting room so I could pin baste them together into a quilt sandwich. I'm no longer able to do this on the floor and find that pinning at table height is soooo much easier. I got the flannel baby quilt pinned, but when I laid out the Christmas throw, I realized the batting was about 2" too short. Drats! I had taken large batting scraps and pieced them and thought it was big enough, but not. So I have to add a few inches on the batting and drag the thing back to work another day. And there's nothing I like better than staying at the office after hours to do this! (Sarcasm there) Oh well, there's nothing to be done but fix it and get on with the quilting.

When I finish the tops, I'll post pix of them.

So Far Behind

2011-11-07T09:12:00.000-06:00

. . . and not just in my quilting. Somehow, I got about 3 weeks behind in reading the blogs I follow and my OCD tendency would not allow me to post until I'd read all the blog entries I'd missed. And I have to read each one since you all write such great stuff! After spending close to 3 hours reading last night and still being several days behind, my brain said "Enough!" So it's time to share a wonderful experience I had this weekend--and I'll read the rest of the blogs later. :-)

I spent Saturday with a person I've been wanting to meet for the past 3 or 4 years. Cathy and I "met" at My Quilt Blog and since we seem to have many things in common, we've been emailing each other ever since. We've tried numerous times to set a day when we can actually meet face to face and finally did it on Sat. Cathy lives less than 2 hours from me so we met in Stillwater MN for breakfast.

I've never met an on-line friend before so I was a little apprehensive--What if we don't have anything to talk about? What if she's overbearing or shy and retiring? What if she has BO or bad breath? What if she's too classy for me? What was my plan of escape if this didn't go well? Not to worry. From the instant I saw her in the parking lot, I just knew we would hit it off. We talked all through breakfast and then went shop hopping for the rest of the day. We covered 4 shops in the area that I'd heard of but hadn't been to and, Oh My! What a treat each shop was!

I bought a few things pictured here, but the best part of the day was spending time with my new found friend. I'm so glad we finally got together and I would have liked to have spent more time with Cathy except she and I both had obligations we had to get home for. BUT, we both agreed that Saturday would only be the first of many times we'll be together. All my concerns were unfounded. I felt as though I'd known her for years--she's so easy to talk to and best of all, she listened to what I had to say! Yep, I'm glad we took a chance and finally got together. Thanks, Cathy, for a wonderful day together.

Here's what I got at the shops. I found these fabrics on the sale rack: Some cute robins and a Xmas fabric I think would work well as sashing in a project. One and a quarter yard of the robins and 1 1/2 yards of the Xmas.

Actually, as I look at the photo, I think these fabrics might go together very well.

At another shop, I found this embroidery pattern which I started last night.

Although the pattern is for a pillow, I'm going to make it up as a little wall hanging for my guild Xmas exchange. We will have a pot luck party in early December and we are to bring a wall hanging no larger than 24" by 24" for a gift exchange. So, this will be my offering.

I'm off work today and have a ton of ~~drudgery and toil~~ homemaking to do. It's a beautiful sunny day with not too much wind and with promise of enough warmth that I'll be able to clean my windows before the frost and chill of winter sets in.

I'm full to the brim with quilting!

2011-10-17T10:28:00.000-05:00

I can't believe the last 3 days of my life! An amazing journey in quilting, unlike anything I've experienced before. Three days on retreat with about 20 members of my guild--Ah, life is good.

We stayed at a northwoods resort on Lake Holcombe an hour's drive east of where I live. We were all in one room with our machines whirring away, irons steaming, Ipod playing great tunes, and a "special" table spilling over with delicious snacks. A quilter's heaven! We all worked on projects that we had brought from home as well as a charity project. We each sewed a dress for "Little Dresses for Africa" http://www.littledressesforafrica.org/blog/ and we'll send them to Nancy's Notions http://www.nancysnotions.com/ to be shipped to the organization. I hope the girl who receives my dress enjoys wearing it as much as I enjoyed making it.

We played a few games, had drawings for door prizes--I won a book of seasonal quilts and a little table to keep near my sewing machine for pressing little blocks or to hold quilting supplies as I sew--and talked/laughed/sewed/ate until the wee hours.

I finished the applique on Lily's D 4 Patch quilt.

I also did most of the flannel owl baby quilt for my friend's expected new granddaughter. (Thank you to whoever put this fabric in the Traveling Stash!) I created this quilt as I went along and decided I needed a bit of green flannel for a narrow inner border or flange before putting on the main border. When I packed up to leave on Sunday, I headed for the shop where I'd purchased the rest of the flannel to get the green. I also decided to make prairie points instead of flange.

Other than the tremendous amount of camaraderie, stitching, and sometimes reverse stitching that occurred, there were 2 highlights for me.

1) We took a trip to a new-to-me LQS about 20 miles away and they had some very cute things. I couldn't pass up this fat quarter bundle of Xmas prints (Can you believe 8 FQ for $12.50???) and I also bought this bag pattern which I'm wanting to make up RIGHT NOW! and 2) On Saturday, I took a 2 mile walk in the afternoon (which I normally don't do because of knee pain when I walk) and NO KNEE PAIN afterwards! Hurray!

All in all, it was a wonderful retreat for a first timer and I'll definitely return next year. As Lily would say, "Aww--Do I have to wait an entire year for the next one? Not fair!"

Apples and tomatoes

2011-10-13T17:36:00.000-05:00

I've been up to my elbows in apples and tomatoes. Don picked all the apples off the two trees we planted a few years ago in the yard and after a couple days' labor, I am the proud caretaker of 5 apple pies in the freezer (Hey! Thanksgiving is just around the corner!) And 4 quarts of the most beautiful and delicious apple sauce I've ever tasted or seen! Next was tomatoes. I had picked all of them a couple of weeks ago--both red and green ones--when I was cleaning up the garden. Almost all of the green ones are now red, so they were washed, quartered and thrown into a freezer bag, ready for me to use in making chili on cold winter days.

I've also been working on Lily's quilt and am ready to begin appliqueing the vines, flowers and leaves on the border. I'm leaving tomorrow for a 3 day quilting retreat at a nearby resort and will work on that while I'm there. I'll be taking the stuff I need to begin working on Dan's quilt as well as some place mats and tables quilts I have in mind. I think I'll be delightfully busy, quilting for 3 days with a group of super great people.

This is the second guild I've been in. The first one I was in for 4 years when it dawned on me that I didn't feel like a member and I certainly wasn't treated like a member and if it hadn't happened in 4 years, it likely was not going to happen at all. So I left and haven't been back. I don't have hard feelings--this was a group of people who had grown up together in the same small town, went to school together, likely were in each other's weddings, babysat each other's kids, etc. They didn't need to let a newcomer into their group, which is perfectly okay.

The second guild--my present one--I've been a member of for about a year. This is a more diverse group of women. Many of them grew up in other towns and have moved from time to time because of job demands. I have more in common with them since I too have moved a lot and have been a "stranger" in many new towns. (Some would say I'm always "stranger" whether I'm in a new town or not, but that's another issue.LOL) Anyway, I feel very comfortable with these ladies and I think I'm going to have a great time at the retreat. I'll let you know how it turns out and what progress I make on my projects. I may just put my feet up, read a book, indulge in the goodies and treats, and laugh along with the others until I wet my pants. If I do that, I won't blog about it. :)

Traveling Stash

2011-10-08T09:52:00.000-05:00

The TS is at Bernie's (check out http://sewbernie.blogspot.com/) so if you want to have a chance at getting it at your house, leave a comment on her blog and she'll put your name in the drawing which she'll have on October 13. Take it from me, that box is full of quilting yummies!

The rules are 1) You have to have an active blog 2) You can take anything you want out of the box but you MUST replace it with items of equal value and quality 3) You must post about the TS on your blog and 4) You must be willing to send it on to the next recipient. Because of the cost of shipping, this is limited to the US and Canada.

When the box arrived at my house and I opened it up, it was like a quilter's Christmas! So many wonderful things in there! The hardest thing about the whole venture was choosing what to take out, but it was fun shopping my stash to find replacement items. Bernie says she has some Halloween fabric to add to the stash--Sweet!

Anyway, it was a lot of fun to get the TS and to send it on to another delighted person, so please check out Bernie's blog and enter your comment into her drawing.

Lots of news

2011-10-08T09:13:00.000-05:00

It's been awhile since I've posted--because I've been BI-IZZ-ZY! I don't know what all I've done but all of a sudden we're well into October! Yikes! I hope I had a good time with whatever I was doing! :)

The last weekend of September Don and I went to Nelson Dewey State Park near Cassville WI in the SW or "driftless" area of the state. The weather was perrrfect! This is a pic I snapped from the car window as we rounded a corner on the way there. Beautiful autumn colors. I love the deep wine color of the sumac. Autumn is my absolutely favorite time of the year--such beauty but only for a few weeks unfortunately. In the North where I live, the trees are just beyond peak color and the fierce winds are blowing off the leaves in heaps.

While on this camping trip, we were joined by some friends and Elaine and I spent the day exploring downtown Mineral Point while the guys played golf. I liked the old turn-of-the-century (the last century, not the most recent one. LOL) buildings in this town. A lot of the shops were closed for the season or at least for the day we were there, but we were still able to see lots of local art and crafty things for sale.

The second day of our trip we spent several hours at Stonefield, Gov Dewey's Victorian era "gentleman farmer's) 2000 acre estate. It's now a state historical site and includes some of the original buildings as well as recreated buildings of the era. The state farm machinery museum is there--lots of old steam powered equipment, if you like that kind of thing! Also a typical small farming village of the 1900's which I found very interesting. We'd been there about 15 or 20 years ago and on that trip, I had my first (and only) glass of sarsaparilla in the saloon as well as my first (of many) pickled egg. This time, we were too late in the season for the saloon to be open. Darn! And, I forgot to bring the camera that afternoon--double darn!

Since we got home from camping, we've been outside a lot, getting the gardens in shape for winter so I've not been doing much sewing. But last night I played with my fabrics for awhile and made several 6" friendship star blocks. At the recent guild meeting, we were challenged to make these blocks in autumn colors and bring them next month. You'll get an entry in the drawing for each block you bring and whoever's name is drawn will take home ALL the blocks! I made 6 blocks last night and hope to have many more to enter. I'm already thinking of how I could use a bunch of these blocks--Hmmmm.

At the guild meeting we discussed the upcoming retreat--only 6 more days! And I can't wait! I've been having trouble deciding what to bring with and I decided to begin working on a new quilt for my son. I'd bought this collection of fabrics a couple of years ago and have finally decided on a pattern for them.

When I looked pulled them out, they were OK but then I remembered what our guild guest said the other night about adding from your stash to liven up the collection fabrics. So I did. Look at how much richer they look together with the additional fabrics.

This will be a "controlled" scrappy quilt! I usually think I'm "cheating" if I add to the collections, I suppose because I think the designers have done their job perfectly and who am I to second guess them. But Jill gave me "permission" to go ahead and trust myself in this area, something I should have been doing all along. Why do I not trust that I'm doing things correctly???

So, I'm going to make a modified log cabin pattern out of these fabrics using 2" strips, and I can't wait to get started! I also will add the borders to Lily's Disappearing 4 Patch quilt and have it ready to begin appliqueing the flowers on the border. I'd like to try needle turn applique, but for a child's quilt, I think I'll do it by machine.

That's enough for one post. Got to plant tulip bulbs before the rains come today and before I get ready for a baby shower this afternoon.

The Traveling Stash moves on

2011-09-24T20:24:00.000-05:00

In my low tech but effective manner, I've chosen the winner of the Traveling Stash--it's BERNIE of SewBernie http://sewbernie.blogspot.com/! Congratulations, Bernie. I hope you find something you like in the Stash. When you email me your mailing address, the Stash will be on it's way to YOU!!

Paying It Forward

2011-09-24T17:25:00.000-05:00

I've never done pay it forward but today I found this at Angie's blog here
http://sfquilts.blogspot.com/ and decided to give it a try. Pay It Forward is simple: For the first 3 people who comment on this entry, I promise to send them something handmade within the next year. Now that's my kind of deadline! Here are the rules:
1. I will make a little something for the first 3 people that comment on this post. It will be a surprise and may arrive at any time in the next 365 days (yes, a year).
2. To sign up to receive a gift from me you must play along too. Share the giving love on your blog by promising to send a handmade goodie to the first three people that comment on your blog post.
3. You must have a blog.
4. After commenting on my post, you have to post this (or similar) on your blog to spread the love.

And what a great way to connect with people, by sharing a little love-ly gift at an unexpected time. I think this sounds like a simple and fun thing to do!

Appearing Disappearing 4-Patch

2011-09-23T17:34:00.000-05:00

I've been working on Lily's new quilt--putting the blocks into rows and making the center. I have 2 more rows to go and the center will be finished. This is what I've got so far:

It looks quite busy to me and I have no more of the flowered white fabric to use for a border. I picked up some white on white fabric today and will use that for the border. I plan to applique some flowers on the border using the colored fabrics and will use the blue fabric for the binding.
I really like working on this quilt, but it's quite time consuming. Each block had to be sewn and cut twice--takes time!--and stitching the blocks and rows together requires lots of pinning to get the seams to match up properly--takes more time! But it's such a colorful quilt that I'm feeling good about taking all that time to do it right. And why make a quilt if you don't take the time to do it right, right?
Tomorrow I'll draw the name of the lucky winner of the Traveling Stash. I can't wait to find out who gets it next! Others on this blogging site who have giveaways use what sounds like complicated electronic name drawing programs but not me! I'm low tech most of the time and I'll just draw a name out of a hat. Trust me, I'll have on a blindfold so I can't cheat. LOL
You have until tomorrow at 8 PM Central Daylight Time to leave a comment on my blog to be entered in the drawing. I hope you win!

Design Seeds

2011-09-20T11:10:00.000-05:00

I found a great website that I'll share with you here: http://www.design-seeds.com/p/palette-search.html. It's a place to figure out palettes of color for quilts as well as other design challenges. Like decorating a room. Since I'm very design challenged, I thought this was a greatly needed solution! The only problem I think I'll have with it is deciding on which palette to choose for my next quilt which might be this: http://lilysquilts.blogspot.com/2011/08/interested-in-dead-simple-qal.html Lily is doing a "Dead Simple Quiltalong." I'm interested in the Simple part of this project!

Speaking of simple, please leave a simple commment (or complex if you like) on my blog before Saturday the 24th if you want a chance to win the Traveling Stash. I've decided to add a couple of additional things to the box, but will leave that as a surprise for the winner to discover.

Autumn Rains

2011-09-19T10:53:00.001-05:00

Yesterday it was gloomy and cloudy with a gentle drizzle for most of the day. Generally a blah kind of day for many things, but a good day for the trees and bushes which need water before going into their winter dormancy. It was also a great day for sewing! Don's been gone for a few days on a golf trip and I only had Lily for a few hours in the morning so I spent my afternoon and evening at the machine.

Lily said she doesn't like her Nemo quilt anymore :( and wants another one. I found the white with colored flowers fabric in my stash and decided to make "Disappearing Four Patch" blocks for her. I got the idea here: http://sewwonderful.blogspot.com/2010/02/disappearing-4-patch-or-4-to-9-patch.html They are a little time consuming to make since you have to cut, sew, cut again and sew again, but I like how they come out. I also like working with these brights--especially on a gloomy, rainy day. :)

Don't forget to leave a comment here if you want a chance to win the Traveling Stash. I doubt that you'll be disappointed if you win it! It's got some very good stuff in it. You can leave your comment anytime before Saturday, the 24th if you want to be in the drawing. You simply have to have an active blog, be willing to replace what you take with comparable goods, and be willing to send the box along to the next winner. EASY!

The Traveling Stash

2011-09-17T11:24:00.000-05:00

arrived at my house last Monday, the 12th, and what a treasure it is! If you want to learn about the Traveling Stash, go here: http://www.potsandpins.com/blog/2011/01/the-traveling-stash-giveaway.html

I knew my name had been drawn by Sharon at http://vroomansquilts.blogspot.com/ a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, Sharon has been involved in a bit of flooding and cleaning up in her part of the world so it took awhile for the Stash to arrive here in Wisconsin. Believe me, it was worth the wait! I've been super busy here and I really couldn't go through it until Thursday night. Choosing what to keep was quite the challenge since it's all so good! Finally, I decided on these things:
From top right, a 4-pack of FQs in gorgeous caramely browns, 2-24 piece charm packs in bright colors, a roll of 5" polka dot strips (Can't wait to play with these dotty fabrics!), and a package of 2" squares that will convert quite nicely into 4 patch blocks.

I also chose the Moda "Hoopla" jelly roll and the pink owl flannel. I'd spent that day with my friend whose daughter is expecting her first child, a little girl, in December and who is decorating the nursery in an owl theme. We'd looked for owl fabric in the quilt shop but couldn't find anything that suited, so imagine my delight when I opened the Stash and this was right on the top! It's perfect for this new baby!

The Traveling Stash rules require that I restock the box with comparable items of comparable quality. I shopped my stash and chose these things to add to the box. In the back are 4 FQ in delicate browns and blues, and in the front left, a packet of 4 FQs in autumn golds/greens/browns/blacks, a funny Thanksgiving FQ and a cat print FQ.

I also added some pumpkin-y Halloween yardage, some geometric green/gold/rust/brown yardage, some brown with green leaves and gold berries yardage, and a packet of 14-4 1/4" squares of green and lavender flowers, dragonflies, and great blue herons.

More yardage from my stash, and I threw in a packet of quilting hardware--pins, safety pins, a couple of thimbles for hand quilters, and other stuff.

So, if you would like a chance at having the Traveling Stash come to your door, please leave a comment on my blog. To win you must have an "active" blog, and you must be willing to replenish the Stash with good quality items of value equal to what you take out, and lastly, you must be willing to send it forward to the next winner. Because of the cost of international postage, this unfortunately has to be limited to US bloggers.

I'll be drawing the next winner in a weeks' time--next Saturday, the 24th. So you have 7 days to leave your comment. To make it more exciting, feel free to share this post with your blogger friends so they will have a chance at winning it too. The more, the merrier, right?

Now, I'm going to play with polka dots. :)

Another raffle quilt

2011-09-17T08:44:00.000-05:00

I've been working on another quilt to donate for a fundraiser. This time, it's for the volunteer services organization in the county where I work. I'm friends with the director who took over the job only a few months ago. One of the first things she realized was how impoverished the group was so we started brainstorming ways to raise money. We decided on holding a raffle and, of course, I donated the quilt shown below.

I used Kate Spain's "Flurry" pattern which is on line here:

http://www.hancocks-paducah.com/ItemFiles/PDF/MPS27080.pdf but I made it with Christmas fabrics I had left over from other projects. I like the way it turned out and the piecing was super easy. I quilted it with a holly/berry circular design in each of the presents, a triangular Christmas tree design in the sashing and long, curvy lines in the outer border. The raffle drawing will be on the 15th of December so I thought this was an appropriate quilt.

We want to have other things on the raffle like dinner theater tickets, a bus trip to somewhere, basket of locally grown and produced foods like maple syrup and pumpkinseed oil and so forth. I'm working on getting an "indoor/outdoor golf package." I want to get gift certificates for free golfing at half a dozen golf courses in the area including indoor golfing for this winter and, if I'm lucky, a certificate from a sporting goods store so the winner can get new shoes or a new golf club or something.

I'm excited to see what we end up on this raffle, and how much we get from ticket sales. Tickets go on sale on Oct 15, 2011 so if you want to get in on the action, let me know. :) (Only half kidding about this.)

Too heart-breaking for words

2011-09-11T09:28:00.000-05:00

I'm in my living room this morning, having my second cup of coffee. Don has left for his daily golf game and I'm thinking of how I'll be spending the day. Sipping at my coffee and gazing out the front window at the beautiful September day outside--sapphire blue sky, gentle sunshine with a promise of heat later on, trees barely beginning their Autumnal color changes-and I suddenly remember a day so identical to this. Ten years ago, that day changed as I watched the planes smash into the towers in New York and later, into the Pentagon and into the ground in Pennsylvania.

My world was changed that day but not so severely as it was for the families of those killed in the attacks and the families of all those killed in the subsequent wars. There are no words to express the heartbreak I feel on this beautiful September day. Perhaps the tears flowing from my eyes as I write this, say it for me.

This is a Yahoo! picture.

Comments

2011-09-01T15:22:00.000-05:00

I've received news from some followers that they are having difficulty posting comments on my blog. I've gone into the "comments" section and have changed some of the settings so maybe that will help. Or maybe not, since my computer savvy is minimal and I usually change things and simply hope for the best. Kind of like my gardening--I plant something and challenge it to grow despite my neglect. {:o)

Anyway, please let me know if you continue to have problems commenting. Thanks.

I won!

2011-08-29T10:30:00.000-05:00

I opened my email and had a message from Sharon at Vrooman Quilts saying I'd won her drawing for the traveling stash box! I can't believe it! I NEVER win in these drawings, but I DID!

Check it out at Sharon's blog here: http://vroomansquilts.blogspot.com/

I hope she's been safe from the storm and that the emergency lock down has been lifted. I've not paid any attention to news of the world since Sat AM so I hope the hurricane wasn't too bad.

Anyway, I suppose I'll be posting the next drawing for the traveling stash on my blog in a few weeks, so pay attention! I promised Sharon that I would reload the box with choice bits and pieces so the box will continue to be a treat for whoever gets it.

Can't believe she drew my name!

Weekend update

2011-08-29T10:19:00.000-05:00

My weekend was FANTASTIC! I had a houseful of people and had a ball with them! Don and Dobie exchanged lots of ideas of how to improve camping with the pop-up and Dobie and Elaine decided to camp with us at the end of this month. Luckily, the season will be about over and they were able to reserve the campsite right next to us. Yea! This is going to be so much fun!

We cooked on the grill--brined pork chops on Saturday and brined turkey breast on Sunday. Absolutely yummy! I vow to never cook pork or turkey again without brining it first! We sat around on the patio and visited. We played volleyball in the pool--the guys skunked us 3 games to none! I told them we were "just hitting our stride when you guys decided to quit!" Rationalizing, I know, but fun. We hiked in the hills and down to the river, and we went out and saw the most brilliant star-filled skies at night. Saw the International Space Station twice, making it's way across the Southern sky.

What a great weekend! I love being with such good friends. I hope we have many, many more weekends with them.

All done

2011-08-26T22:49:00.000-05:00

I did it! All my cleaning chores--I LOVE my clean house! :)--with a lot of help from Lily. She's (almost) always ready to help out with chores and today she didn't let me down. As well as finishing the cleaning, Lily and I made a batch of peach jam and I got the last picking of green beans in the freezer. And, I had time after supper to work on the raffle quilt! I haven't worked this hard in a long time. HA! When I was in my 20's and 30's, even my 40's, this would have been an average day. I wish I had a little more of that energy these days. But, I'm happy I got it all done and am now relaxing before my friends arrive tomorrow.

Company's coming!

2011-08-24T11:43:00.001-05:00

I love having company! Not only do I get to spend time with good friends that I don't see nearly as often as I would like, but I get to try out my culinary skills to folks who, hopefully, will appreciate it. Not that the Husband doesn't like my cooking, but he could care less about food. He'd eat boiled tires if there was enough sauce on them. LOL The other plus about having company is that I have to give my house a good cleaning.

I LOVE having a clean house. I absolutely HATE the cleaning process! I'm also too cheap ( I mean, frugal ;) ) to hire someone to clean for me. So I usually do superficial cleaning but when Company's coming, I get down and clean it really well.

Friends are coming on Saturday and staying through Monday AM. I created a cleaning plan and assigned Husband certain areas that are his to do and certain areas that are for me. So far I have 2 of my 4 areas finished and will do the other 2 on Friday. Husband also has only 1 area left for him to do on Friday. I also made a menu plan so I know what I'm going to serve for meals and snacks. Does this sound a bit compulsive? Well, I call it "organized." When I have so much out-of-the-ordinary stuff to do, I tend to get confused and end up not doing the things that should have been done. So, it's lists and plans for me.

I told myself that I had to get my cleaning chores done before I could work on any quilting and so far, I'm sticking to that plan. I've finished cleaning for today and now have to move on to freezing the green beans that have finally started to come in in the garden. Pretty late, but we had to plant late due to a cool and wet spring. After beans, it's quilting for a few hours before bed.

I'm working an a holiday lap quilt that will be raffled off in a fundraiser for the local volunteer services organization in the county where I work. This group of volunteers provide transportation for folks who don't have a way to get to their medical appointments, a truly critical service in such a rural area. They are funded through donations and the volunteer director and I decided to have a raffle this fall to raise some money. I offered to make a quilt and since the drawing will be in early December, I decided on a Christmas quilt.

I'll post pix of it when it's finished. I started the quilting on Monday and nearly have the center finished but am having a difficult time, as always, with designs for the sashing and borders. Oh well, it will come to me. I'm pleased with how this is coming along--I hope the public likes enough to buy lots of chances! There will be other items in the raffle as well but that's not determined just yet.

I hear green beans calling me . . .

Quilting and Camping

2011-08-22T09:16:00.000-05:00

Here are a few additional pix from the quilt show. Again, these are NOT the winners! Actually, I realized that I never did see the best in show and other first place winners. They must have been hidden away in a room I didn't get to. Anyway, I love the brilliant colors in this quilt and very intricate piecing as well.

This is another example of the amazing machine quilting in one of the entries as well as perfect hand applique. While I personally don't like such intense quilting in my projects, I admire the skill it takes to make something like this.

And this is a beautiful work of art that just shimmered and sparkled in the light. I think some of the metallic threads showed up in the pix. Looks a bit "Russia in the time of the Czars" to me. :)

Now for new news. Don and I took Lily camping this week in our new/used pop-up camper! I've always been a tent camper and have done mostly wilderness camping. Now, however, my bum knees prevent that kind of strenuous activity and my bum back says, "No more sleeping on the ground." Arthritis is a scourge!

I loved being in the pop-up, especially the morning after a storm and I could fix breakfast on the little propane stove in there. Sweet! No more cussing at damp wood and fires that refuse to be lit! We went to Pattison State Park just south of Superior and Lily had a ball. She made a friend within an hour of arrival and the girls were together all evening and the next morning until the girl's family had to leave for home. Then it was hiking with Gramma and Grandpa, swimming in Lake Superior on Wisconsin Point, and cooking over the fire for supper. I found out that Lily is a S'More hound! She would have toasted the entire bag of marshmallows if we'd let her! We left Saturday afternoon, one day early, since storms were forecast for the evening continuing until morning, and I particularly don't like breaking up camp in the rain. :-(

This is the lake at the park. The beach was closed due to bacteria and debris from recent storms.

Lily loves going to the Lake Superior beaches! Water's a bit too cold for swimming but a great sandy beach for playing.

Here's the S'Mores queen!
Lily roasted the marshmallows and Don assembled the chocolate and cracker. What a team!

Milwaukee Machine Quilting Show

2011-08-15T20:01:00.000-05:00

I spent 2 days last week in Milwaukee at the Machine Quilting Show and I can't begin to tell you how beautiful the show quilts were. Absolutely amazing in design and workmanship! I thought the non-winners were wonderful and the ones that got the ribbons--true works of art.

I took some pix and then the camera failed. Note to Barb--check the battery next time. Anyway, here's some of what I got:

Here's a close up of the quilt above. The quilting was so dense and precise. The little dots are crystals. A lot of the quilts had crystals and ample use of metallic threads.

This quilt was rather "ordinary" compared to the jeweled masterpieces but I like the quilting design and will use this in one of my "ordinary" quilts.

This is a blue on white quilt that looked amazing in person but the pix doesn't do it justice. Very intricate quilting on this one.

This one looked like an abstract design until I stepped back to take the picture and saw the face! I love the uniqueness of this one.

And here's a close up of the quilting and embellishments.

This quilt was absolutely beyond belief! I think it was done on silk fabric with lots of metallic threads and crystals. I remember that the mermaids were appliqued onto the top. I couldn't get the entire length of the piece in one picture--I think there's several more inches on the bottom and the top of this one. Just amazing!

And the last picture is one that was extraordinary in the show, but looks a bit dull here. It's a variation of a whack and stack--the quilter bordered each medallion like a feathered star. Another simply amazing entry.

I took two classes at the show--and learned a lot of things on how to attend to the details of finishing the quilt. Like various kinds of bindings and lots of tips on machine quilting.

I also spent some time at the Sunshine 16/Pennywinkle Ranch booth. This Tennessee company makes an affordable sit-down quilting machine--which is what I'd like to own--but I've never heard of them. Has anyone in Blogland heard of this company or better yet, owned one of their machines? Even tho their product is more affordable than those of the "big boys" it's still a sizeable amount and I'm hesitant to buy it without hearing from someone who's bought one.

Quilting and politics

2011-08-11T08:59:00.000-05:00

Go together like a horse and carriage??? Oh well. Tuesday was the big recall elections in WI and while the candidate I was campaigning for did not win her contest, I'm so glad I am a participant in this movement. I've always been politically progressive in my thinking and all my life I've carried on about the injustices of the system, etc, etc--from my living room. I've never even written a letter to the newspaper until this year, much less demonstrated or knocked on doors to get out the vote. Even when I was in college in the 60's I never protested although I agreed with the protesters. So now, in 2011, I got off the couch, left my house, and became active in this political movement, and I'm really glad I did. I feel as though I've made a contribution as a citizen--more than simply casting a vote on election day. It's exhilarating!

As for quilting, I'm off to Milwaukee this afternoon--Can't Wait!!! I have all my stuff packed up except for a couple of things that go in at the last minute and I'm off! Since I'm taking a couple of classes, I'm bringing my machine and sewing stuff so I'll be able to work on things in the hotel room in the evening. Two days of quilting immersion without having to do laundry, tend the garden, or even cook food for myself. Now that's my idea of bliss!

Even more blissful is that the bandage has come off my hand! It was big and bulky and starting to get really gross. The first thing I did was wash my hands and put on lotion. I have a little pain but all the carpal tunnel symptoms are gone--Hallelujah! This means, I can cut, stitch and press without a worry! Thank you, modern medicine, and health insurance.

Quilting and elections

2011-08-09T09:17:00.000-05:00

I spent yesterday evening in Menomonie knocking on doors in the "Get Out The Vote" effort I've been involved in over the summer. Today is the last day. We are having elections today for the 6 Republican state senators who are up for recall. I am only one of hundreds of volunteers who have put in probably thousands of hours in this effort and at 8 pm we will begin to get the results of it all. Regardless of the outcome of the voting, it will all be worth it since this state has experienced a lesson in Democracy that we wouldn't have otherwise. Unfortunately, the candidates seem to have been overshadowed by the PACs who are spending millions of dollars in advertising. I don't agree with the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court which gives corporations and unions the "freedom of speech" that the constitution states is for the people. If corporations have the same rights as the people, why don't they own up to the responsibilities that go along with those rights? Like paying taxes!

Enough of that soapbox. I was looking at some examples of machine quilting which were very beautiful. The quilting was very dense and I realized that as time passes, I'm seeing more and more densely stitched quilts. Is it just me or do others see this as well? Personally, I don't like my quilts to be too densely quilted--just enough to keep it all together and to emphasize the main features of the piece. Also, it's cheaper than using all that thread and it's faster to not do all the extra quilting. I'd be interested in what others think about this trend. I'm going to a machine quilting show in Milwaukee this week and I'll take some pix of the pieces I find there.

Road trip

2011-08-07T15:00:00.000-05:00

I've been on the road lately. Don and I left Friday AM for Galena IL, a picturesque little riverboat town on the Galena River in NW Illinois that I've been wanting to visit for sometime. Halfway there, I remembered that I'd left the camera at home so--no pix. Sorry. Anyway, we spent the afternoon there wandering about the shops and took a trolley ride all over the town. I didn't know that it was the home of President Grant! Unfortunately, we were there too late to tour his home--next time, maybe. There are some spectacular examples of late Victorian era architecture--gingerbread overload! The shops were filled with very nice crafty products. I spent some $ at the wine store (The best wine I sampled turned out to be, you guessed it, the most expensive on this list!) and Don spent some at the "Canning Company" on salsa and BBQ sauce. We stopped by the Phat Quarters temp shop and I was a bit disappointed. Last week, apparently, there had been a massive rainfall--20" overnight!--that swelled the Galena River and did some nasty flooding in part of the downtown, including the Phat Quarter shop. So they had piled their stuff into a temp shop higher up until the other shop got cleaned up. Thank goodness they were able to salvage at least some of their goods.

On Saturday, we headed to Peoria, Don's home town, for the annual family reunion. I haven't attended for over 15 years and I really enjoyed being back there. The same people--and more--were there, except for those who have passed on their way, and I missed seeing them. We had some good food and good visiting as well. It was waaaay too hot for the annual softball game so the festivities ended sooner than usual. Every year, we have an money-raising auction of things that each family donates. This is how we pay for the food, park rental, and supplies. I compiled a basket of Wisconsin foods, particularly from my area of the state, and it was very well received (meaning, a lot of people wanted it so they bid a lot of money for it :) ) We always include a bottle of local maple syrup, pancake mix and honey and this year I added cranberries, wild rice, some steak sauce and mustard, and jam from my kitchen. I would have put in some cheese curds, brats, and local beer, but refrigeration is a challenge. Darn it anyhow!

After the reunion, we headed north and spent the night in Janesville and today we finished the trip and came home. We stuck to the interstate all the way and I saw that there were blue astors blooming with some other kind of yellow flower and the white Queen Anne's Lace. I think it's time I made a blue-yellow-white kind of quilt, don't you? Now, Don has the lawn to mow, and I have some work in the garden to tend to. Then a quiet evening.

I really love traveling, but I like getting back into my own house where I feel the most comfortable. Now I'm home until Thursday when I head to the Milwaukee Machine Quilting Show for 2 days. Can't wait for that--and I'm going to take the camera on this trip for sure!

A day at the zoo

2011-07-31T11:57:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, Tessa, Lily and I went to Duluth to escape the heat. Usually, Duluth MN has temps in the 70's and maybe as high as the 80's in July and since neither Tessa or I enjoy hot and humid weather, we decided to go North to cool off.

Wow! Have things changed in Duluth since I lived there in the 1970's and 80's! Yesterday it was hotter and more humid there than at home! But we went to the zoo and had a picnic and finished up at Brighton Beach with our feet in the cool, cool waters of Lake Superior.

As it happens, my husband helped build the zoo and Spirit Mountain ski area as well, back in the late 1970's. He was in graduate school at UMD and for two summers, he supervised crews of teenagers working in a summer youth program. His crews did brushing along the trails and other manual labor jobs at both sites. It was a good program--the underprivileged kids earned some sorely needed money and got some job experience, Don had a good paying summer job to support our growing family, and the city and the public got two beautiful recreational areas.

This is me sitting on the bridge over the creek which flows through the zoo grounds. I've always loved Duluth for the natural areas within the city and the many rivers and streams that flow down the hillside to the lake. Just about anywhere in the city, you're within walking distance of wilderness, which I love.

I lived in Duluth for 12 years and I loved (almost) every minute of it. Even in the long, long winters, I learned to embrace ice hockey, sledding, skating and skiing and the cold months flew by. No doubt about it, I'm a woman of the North.

Right now, I'm ready for Autumn to arrive! But first, I have raspberry jam to make today.

Favorite Things Friday

2011-07-29T18:29:00.000-05:00

Check out Mrs. P's blog here, http://fairybreadmusings.blogspot.com/2011/07/favourite-things-friday_29.html, if you want to post about your favorite thing on this last Friday in July or to read about other folks' FTFs. Today, in the sauna we call the Midwest of the USA, we're having temps near 90 with humidity around 50% and this is my FTF:

'Nuff said, I'm joining Lily and Don!

Back to work

2011-07-28T21:12:00.000-05:00

I returned to work today after having carpal tunnel surgery on my right wrist on the 25th. For 3 days I lounged around the house, high on Vicodin, and unable to do anything because my hand is wrapped in a gi-normous bandage! Certainly no rotary cutting even if I was off the Vicodin. Very boring to say the least, but I was able to sit and watch my husband working in the garden with no expectation that I join him. One of life's simple joys!

I kicked the Vicodin and went to work with only a little Tylenol and was amazingly pain free. After the surgery, the nurse said there was a Rx for 20 of the little pills and I asked her to change it to 10 since I knew from past experience that I wouldn't need 20. This morning I counted what was left in the bottle--5. I'll save them for later when I have the left hand done.

Anyway, tonight, I find myself absolutely wiped out. I have a fairly sedentary job so there's no good reason I should be so tired, but I am. Lily is at the house for the weekend and she and I went in the pool for awhile (my huge bandaged hand encased in a stifling plastic bag!) and Don fixed the entire meal for us. That's a rarity and I wish he'd cook more often since he does such a good job of it, but he pretends he doesn't know how. Yeah, right.

While I was sitting at home, I spent some time watching politics. What a mess in Washington! I usually watch MSNBC since I'm quite progressive in my politics but tonight I turned on Fox News and got the other side of the story. Talk about absolutely opposite viewpoints! How are they ever going to come to a compromise? It's one thing to get elected and it's another thing altogether to govern, and this congress is sorely lacking in the ability to govern. And all of us in the US will pay the price in the end, as usual. Well, I have faith that it will be taken care of at the last hour so lets wait and see.

A Fresh Start

2011-07-27T15:35:00.000-05:00

I've decided to begin blogging again. After I found My Quilt Blog (MQB) several years ago, I started my first blog and I loved the virtual friendships and camaraderie I found there. Unfortunately, MQB had to dissolve and many of us moved over to blogger.com. I've tried to keep in touch with my friends from MQB but it's not the same. I find myself making fewer and fewer entries at the same time as I found a group of quilters in my neighborhood. These people now serve as my quilting consultants in the same way as the MQB group did.

That said, I still want to be a blogger and I've decided to begin afresh with a diary of my life, not just the quilting part of it. I, as we all are, am a multidimensional person with numerous talents, interests, and abilities, as well as numerous failings and faults. Human, I guess, is the word for it. I'll be using this blog space as an account of my life and the issues that are important to me. I'm writing this primarily for myself and my family but if you want to follow along, please do so. If you find this not to you liking, that's okay, I understand if you "unfollow" me.

This summer has seen very little quilting in my household. I am now "semi-retired" and only work 2 days a week. My husband is newly and fully retired, and we both are determined to keep up with our gardening chores for once. We live on 2 acres of land surrounded by corn fields all around with beautiful hills in the background. Gardening 2 acres requires many hours of work, and so far, we're doing it! (Knock on wood.)

Today, I decided to go through my gardens and take some pix of the daylilies which are blooming now. I'm not a great day lily fan, but somehow I happened to have all these lilies blooming this year. Some of them I bought and others were gifts from my friends, and I have no idea which are which. I just know I planted them several years ago and they are blooming beautifully this summer for the first time.

Happy Independence Day!

2011-07-04T10:13:00.001-05:00

I'm having a very laid back Fourth of July day here in the midwest. I started off by sleeping in until 8:30--trying to recover form that canoe trip yesterday, I think :o) Will be doing some gardening if I ever get out of my jammies, and I want to make it to Hancock Fabrics to get a pattern and fabric for a sundress for Lily. Later, we'll fire up the grill and have steaks for supper--just Don and me.

No matter how you're celebrating the holiday, take a look at Sunday's post at Vrooman's Quilts here:
http://vroomansquilts.blogspot.com/2011/07/fourth.html

At the bottom she enters a quote of Erma Bombeck (which I'm not able to cut and paste for some reason). I loved reading Erma back in the day and I miss her down-to-earth commonsense wisdom--and humor. She always nailed it, with a laugh, right?

Happy Birthday, USA!

Paddling the Hay River

2011-07-03T16:57:00.000-05:00

I went on a canoe trip today on the Hay River near my house. Tessa, Lily and I put the canoe in at the bridge about 1/2 mile away and expected to paddle downstream for a couple of hours to the second bridge where we left her car. We had a gorgeous morning for the trip--temps in the 70's, clear sky, gentle breeze. And the scenery was out of this world! Of course, no camera with us but I took these pix from the bridge where we started. We could smell the scent of the pines in the air along with other clean outdoorsy fragrances. The paddling was so easy, all I had to do was simply guide the canoe around the gentle curves. We saw wildlife! Boy, did we! Over the course of the trip, we spotted 2 otter and 1 beaver, several ducks and 2 that acted like they were wounded to lure us away from their ducklings, 4 sightings of bald eagles (twice they flew right over our heads!), 4 fawns and 5 adult white tail deer. There were lots of birds in the trees making all sorts of noise calling to each other, and we were surrounded by the most beautiful black-winged and blue bodied damselflies. A totally beautiful start to our trip. We paddled along until we came to the first bridge and we all agreed that we should have left the car at that bridge, but we didn't so, we journeyed onward to the second bridge.

That's when the nightmare began. The breeze died down and was replaced by hot sun. Deer flies descended on us in droves and replaced the gentle little damselflies. The deer flies seemed to be attracted to the combined scents of bug spray and sun block. Tessa and Lily had it worse than me since I'd neglected to put on the sunblock. If you don't know about deer flies, they like to live in the shade and they bite! Hard! And they can draw blood! Fortunately, they move slowly and are easy to slap and kill, (sorry, PETA) but not when you're paddling a canoe! Then we began to come across giant trees fallen over the river, blocking our way. We had to crouch down and go under, or do some pretty fancy paddling to go around them, and in one case, Tessa and I had to get out and push the canoe under the tree trunk with Lily in it, lying flat on her stomach. And we discovered that the bottom of the river was either about 6 feet of mucky goop that sucked at our sandals and generally hampered everything, OR in the really shallow places, it was all rocks and we grounded ourselves more than once and had to get out and pull the canoe off the gravel bars. It seemed that this river wanted to really make our lives hell and it became more curvy and twisty as we went on and that meant that I was constantly steering and trying to keep to the deepest channel, and that was very hard work!

All we could think about was getting to the second bridge where the car was. And when would we get there???? I kept telling myself that each stroke of the paddle meant we were closer to the end, and FINALLY, we saw the second bridge! Yea!!!! We pulled up to the bank and Tessa stepped out--into even deeper muck! She managed to make her way up the very steep bank and there was the car! On the other side of the river than where we were! What to do? I crossed my fingers and hoped the water was shallow enough and I started pulling the canoe, with Lily in it, across to the other side and we made it, with me only getting wet to my thighs, thank goodness.

Now, all three of us are tired and sore, and I have a very red sunburned nose, but we are happy we went on this adventure to see some of Mother Nature that we have only glimpsed as we cross the bridges in the car. The trip that was supposed to be a couple of hours--turned out to be 4 1/2 hours!

Would I do it again? You bet! But only to the first bridge. ;) And with a camera.

Father's Day

2011-06-19T11:08:00.000-05:00

Happy Father's Day to all the dad's out there. I think EVERY day should be celebrated as Father's Day--and Mother's Day as well. I want to share some things that I remember about my dad who died when I was 10 years old.

As a girl and even into adulthood, I missed him so much. Even today, I can get teary eyed if I'm not careful, when I'm thinking or talking about my dad. (It's probably unresolved grief or some other emotional disorder but it is what it is.) At any rate, my daughter asked me the other day to tell her something about her grandfather whom she's never met of course. I told her he was a lot like her cousin George, who is named after my dad. Dad was a fun loving person--I remember that he laughed and joked a lot, but he was a very responsible person at the same time. He liked to whistle while he was working around the house--I rarely hear people whistling any more. Does that mean we're less happy and contented than we were in the 50's?

My dad earned some kind of mechanical degree through a correspondence school and supported the 6 of us in the family with his blue collar wages. After work he would tend the garden and the yard and in the winter, take us skating and sledding and spend time in his basement workshop. As a young man in the 30's he and a buddy took off from Minnesota to travel to the west coast and they landed jobs in the orchards of California. I like to think that the oranges I eat today come from the trees he planted back then.

I loved my dad very much. I always felt valuable and special when I was with him. He seemed to enjoy having me with him while he did things and he taught me how to use woodworking and gardening tools by letting me work alongside him. He would spend ten cents to buy an ice cream cone for me while my mom was the one who kept a tight fist on the pocketbook. After our Saturday night baths, my sisters and I, in our bathrobes, would "dance" with Dad by standing on his feet and moving around the living room floor with him. I believe Lawrence Welk was our radio dance band. After his death from what was probably his 5th or 6th heart attack, I missed having him at my graduations, my wedding, and the births of my children.

To all the "kids" whose dads are still dancing on this earth, enjoy every minute you have with them. Make time to spend with Dad--and Mom too. Appreciate them. Savor every minute you have with them. If you have problems with Dad--or Mom--work it out. Solve the problem or let it go. All too soon your dads will be gone and you'll only have memories to cherish. Let your memories be good ones.

Needle Threading Tutorial

2011-06-03T12:28:00.000-05:00

One of the bloggers I follow, Vesuviusmama, posted recently, "Were there any good embroidery needle threaders on the market?" I don't know if she found any but I decided to share how I thread my needles with embroidery floss without using a threader.

The pix are blurry because I had to hold the camera in one hand while holding the needle and floss in the other and contorting like a pretzel to get the right angle. And I have a crappy camera. Yeah, lets blame it on the camera. ;) Anyway, I hope that between the text and the pix, you can figure out what I'm trying to say here.

I draw the strands of floss out of the 6 ply thread, one at a time. I hold the 6 ply between my thumb and first finger--either hand--and draw out one strand while the rest of them bunch up. Don't worry, they don't tangle. Just straighten them out when you've got the first thread pulled out. Then draw out another if you need to. In the pix, I'm just using one thread.

If I'm using more than one strand, I put them together and then proceed with making a loop and I place the needle in the loop as shown.

Next, I hold the loop between my left thumb and first finger (I'm right handed so you lefties will have to do it your way) and snug it down between my fingers so only a teeny tiny bit of the thread shows--with the needle still in the teeny tiny loop.

Then, I draw the needle out of the loop leaving the thread snugged between my fingers. I thread that tiny loop into the eye of the needle instead of trying to get the end of the thread into the eye.

I won't say this works "every" time because I often have to repeat the looping and threading a few times until I get the loop in the eye. (of the needle I mean, not my eye. :)) I think the trick is to keep the tiny loop really tight around the needle before you draw out the needle. Anyway, I have much better luck threading needles this way--especially when embroidering--than trying to stick the end of the thread into the eye.

Then you just pull one end of the thread through the needle and you're ready to go.

I hope this is useful information. Try it and see if this works for you.

Barb H

The Judge's Critique

2011-04-02T20:34:00.000-05:00

I took a big risk. I entered my Hungry Caterpillar quilt (pictured in my previous post) in the quilt show in Rice Lake, WI. That wasn't the risk. On the entry form, I had to chose between simply entering the quilt or entering it and having it critiqued by the judges. "What the heck?" says I, after minutes of trying to decide what to do. "Go for it."

Today, I went to the show. As usual, it was a lovely show with lots of very intricate and beautifully done quilts. The vendors were exceptional and although I vowed to not purchase anything, I did find a few fat quarters and a quilt kit with a fishing theme for my husband's favorite cousin who's like a brother who loves fishing equally as much as he loves golf.

No, I didn't win a ribbon or any other kind of award, and that's pretty much what I expected. However, I was flabbergasted when I read the judge's critique after I got home. She said, "Fun quilt--Great colors--Very good piecing, good binding. Hand stitching could be closer. I like that you washed it and it puckered/shrunk a bit--makes it look great. Great Quilting designs. Some pindots on back from minor tension issues--but overall REALLY Good Quilting."

I never thought the critique would be so positive! I'm my own harshest critic, I guess. So, I'm thinking of beginning a quilt designated exclusively for showing. I picked out the pattern many years ago and haven't had the courage to start it for fear that I wasn't good enough. Now, I think I can tackle it and simply take my time until it's finished. I think I could have it finished in time for next year's show.

Munch, Munch, Yum!

2011-03-30T18:04:00.000-05:00

This is a quilt I made for my best friend's (almost) new grandson, Archer. He's nearly a year old now and my rule is I'm doing good if I get the baby quilt to the kid before he starts kindergarten. So I'm good. I found the printed Hungry Caterpillar fabric a year ago or so and couldn't decide how to use it. Finally, I sat down with graph paper and pencils and made a diagram of the quilt I wanted to make. So this is an original Barb H design--rarely do I design my quilts. I'm much more confortable using someone else's patterns. Now maybe, if I had a computer design program. . . I took some shots of the quilting on this piece. I did this on my Husqvarna Viking Lily 545 and I'm very pleased with how it turned out. Thanks again to Diane Gaudyinski's books for giving me the courage to try this intricate style of FMQ. Since this is all free hand quilting, I appreciate that it's not perfect, and that I will never be a perfect free hand quilter, so don't be too critical. This is a closeup of one of the wings on the butterfly. I used some metalic gold thread as an accent on the wings, the leaf, and the hairs of the caterpillar. In the sunlight, it simply glistens. Here's the leaf with the gold accent in the veining.

And this is a shot of the quilt back with a penny for scale. For once I think the back is as pretty or moreso than the front.

I'm sending a copy of Eric Carle's book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, along with the quilt. I know Archer and his parents--and his 3 year old sister!--will enjoy it.

Making this quilt was pure joy. As you may know, I've been totally absorbed in political activities here in Wisconsin and I found myself getting extremely exhausted from being outraged at our governor and his shenanigans. Sitting down to work on this quilt took my mind off politics for a few hours at a time and enabled me to relax and enjoy what I was doing for a sweet little boy.

Fantastic Giveaway

2011-03-18T11:00:00.000-05:00

Go here: http://emsewandsew.blogspot.com/2011/03/civil-war-reproduction-fabrics-giveaway.html for a fantastic giveaway of 10.5 yards of Civil War reproduction fabrics and book, The Civil War Diary Quilt. Hurry! It closes at 11:30 PM Mountain Daylight Savings Time. I personally LOVE civil war fabrics and can't wait to get the email telling me I've won this wonderful prize--but you can enter if you want anyway. ;-)

Tomorrow is National Quilting Day. I'm going to spend it at a quilting workday with my new guild. I can't wait--it's going to be a lot of fun, fun, fun! I have a baby quilt and a twin quilt that I can work on doing the actual FMQ on and get them finished.

TTFN

Wisconsin update

2011-03-11T08:41:00.000-06:00

My FTF is DEMOCRACY.

If you've "been in a coma," to quote WI's Governor Walker, the past month, you can take a look at this article which explains what's been going on in my dear Dairyland state:

http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/editorial/article_df073de6-4be5-11e0-944e-001cc4c03286.html

In one sense, it's over. Legislation was passed yesterday that not only compels me, a public employee, to take a pay cut of about $250 a month but also strips me of all the collective bargaining rights that WI legally gave to public employees over 50 years ago. There are a number of other important issues in the bill as well which basically sell our state to moneyed interests. Granted, the Gov. hasn't signed the bill yet--I hear that he's huddling with his lawyers to figure out if the thing is constitutional or not. There are complaints filed with the Attorneys General of the state and of Dane county alleging that there were violations of the Open Meetings laws. We'll see about that in days to come.

In another sense, the struggle continues. There are recall petitions to circulate and to sign and we have an election coming up on April 5 for a Supreme Court justice. The incumbent has openly stated that he's a "judicial conservative" and he sees the role of the Supreme Court to "compliment" the legislative and executive branches of our government. However, I think the state's constitution likely does not state that since the 3 branches of government generally are seen as "checks and balances" on each other so no one or two take over control. The other candidate has been very careful to not state her political philosophy, as an honorable candidate for a judgeship should. I will be campaigning for her as I believe we need an independent court to hold the other branches in check.

Neither of my representatives are up for recall but I know where their businesses are and will likely make a big sign and spend some of my free time walking back and forth in front of their stores.

If you think this is only about "spoiled public employees" who are crying about having to pay for health insurance and pensions, think again. The way the events unfolded this past month, it's very clear this is about union busting in order to decrease the monetary impact they will have in upcoming elections. Also, remember that Gov Walker's first action in office was to pass legislation which gives about $140 million in tax breaks to corporations and wealthy individuals, thus "creating" the budget shortfall that he then said public employees have to fill with our wages. He also declared that the unions had to be done away with so local governments would have the "tools" needed to deal with the huge cuts in state aid he was sending their way ("Tools" mean firing staff, to be blunt.)

Now that he's emasculated the public employees' unions, he will push through legislation limiting access to voting. There is a bill pending which would require picture ID at the polls in order to vote. Guess who is most likely to not have this kind of ID? Poor and elderly. Guess who's most likely to vote liberal? Yep, you guessed it. In about 30 states there are movements to limit access to voting by the conservative movement, otherwise known as teabaggers," and yes, I know what that means and it accurately describes their lust for personal satisfaction.

To me, everything that's happened in this state is the prelude to the diminishing of democracy in this country in order to further the agendas of the wealthy and powerful. I'm pretty naive since I still believe the PEOPLE of this state and country should make the decisions, not the folks with enough money to buy the government. So, the struggle continues.

What makes this my FTF is that so far, democracy is still alive and breathing despite the threats to kill it.

No quilting yet!

2011-02-28T09:39:00.000-06:00

I'm still working on fighting the elected dictator we have here in Wisconsin.

Hurray for Polish "Solidarity" who stands behind our struggle for true democracy in this country! http://supersaiyan.newsvine.com/_news/2011/02/26/6140214-wisconsin-workers-get-support-from-polands-solidarity-trade-union
Hurray for the 14 senators who courageously refuse to return until the governor begins to compromise!
Hurray for the demonstrators in Madison who poured out by the thousands yesterday--150,000 by one estimate!
Hurray for the hundreds of thousands of people all over the country who demonstrated in support for us this weekend--and to support themselves as well! http://front.moveon.org/50-photos-from-the-50-state-rallies-to-save-the-american-dream/
Hurray for the Madison police who decided to not kick the demonstrators out of the Capital building last night!

If you want to know what this is about, click here: http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/article_b7677eb3-10fc-5bd8-b696-977bfa353519.html

I doubt I'll be doing much if any quilting until this thing is resolved. I did start knitting a pair of arm warmers for Jo--I can do that while watching the news.

:-)

Barb

"It's about real people vs. really rich people."

FTF

2011-02-24T22:47:00.000-06:00

It's not quite Friday here but I won't have time tomorrow to post. I was reading other people's blogs and I realized---in the midst of all the mental chaos of politics, I forgot to say that my Jo has come home! She flew in from Austin yesterday, Don picked her up at the airport since I had to work, and she got home around 9 pm--tired and travel weary and we are all so glad she's here. At the end of March, she takes off for Bulgaria for another try at the Peace Corps. We'll enjoy her beautiful laugh for the next few weeks.

That's my FTF--having Jo back home.

What's really happening in Wisconsin

2011-02-24T15:12:00.000-06:00

I haven't been on this blog to even read the other posts all week now. I've been entirely focused on the tremendous developments here in Wisconsin--listening to the news, reading on-line papers of all sorts, emailing my representatives, discussing the situation with friends, etc.

To me, this fight is all about the future of representative government in this state, and possibly in this country! I never thought I'd be witnessing such a thing in my lifetime--but I am!

There are powerful wealthy forces at work which are determined to increase their share of the wealth of this state at the expense of the average citizen. Our governor has authorized millions of dollars in additional tax breaks to the wealthiest individuals and corporations in this state (where more than 60% of businesses pay ZERO taxes!) and has forfeited nearly $100 million in federal monies. If his budget proposal is passed, we'll be losing nearly $50 million more in Federal transportation monies! Now, he complains that the state has a budget deficit that needs to be taken care of before July 1, 2011.

He wants public employees to balance our budget shortfall by taking a 7% hit in wages and benefits on top of the 3% we already took in the past 2 years. Guess what? The top unions HAVE agreed to do that and Gov. still won't compromise on this bill. That's because his bill is about union busting, not correcting the deficit! In this bill, which I have read in it's entirety, 56% of the pages are devoted to dismantling the unions. In that way, ALL public governments from the State to the County to the City and Village, including the School Boards, will have the ability to fire and lay off staff willy-nilly!

If the unions are busted, they will no longer be able to make significant contributions to political campaigns as in the past. The national unions are the only organized groups which have the money to make a difference and their contributions are competing with millions (billions?) of political contributions that come from the wealthiest people and corporations through their conservative PACS. So, what this fight boils down to is:

preserving the ability of the PEOPLE to have balanced political campaigns so rational and intelligent decisions can be made.

If the only source of political contributions is from the ultra conservative and libertarian groups, how does the average Joe sift through the hype and know what the real issues are?

In a taped conversation that was revealed yesterday, Gov. Walker believed he was speaking with one of the wealthiest men in the USA, a man who contributed significantly to Walker's campaign last year. Walker speaks freely about planting agitators among the demonstrators to stir up trouble but has refrained only because it may backfire on him politically. He jokes about keeping a baseball bat in his office in case he needs it. There are many other things in the conversation that make my stomach turn--if you haven't heard it yet, go here for the transcript: http://host.madison.com/wsj/article_531276b6-3f6a-11e0-b288-001cc4c002e0.html

Regardless of your political orientation, please, pay attention to what's happening here in the Midwest. If you value democracy and representative government, you MUST support the protesters. If you can join the demonstrations this weekend in your state capital, I urge you to do so!

Democracy in Action in Wisconsin

2011-02-18T21:08:00.000-06:00

All week, I've been consumed with the demonstrations and protests that have erupted all over Wisconsin in response to Gov. Walker's budget "repair" proposal. Under the guise of needing to balance the state budget, he's demanding that all public workers in Wisconsin pay up to 12 times more for health insurance and up to 6 times more for the pension plan and also, stripping our rights to organize in labor unions. Each day this week, increasing numbers of people have been peacefully gathering at the state capital, 13,000 the first day, 40,000 today and who knows how many will show up this weekend! People have held smaller but still peaceful demonstrations in communities all over the state as well. Today, the head of the largest public employee union agreed to the increase in payments in exchange for taking collective bargaining off the table. The Governor said (in so many words) "Hell No!" letting everyone know that his goal is truly to bust the union.

I've been a public servant--I don't consider myself merely an employee--for most of my working life. I feel it a privilege to provide service to the people of this state. I'm proud of the work that I do and I am outraged at this move by the governor to destroy our unions! There is increasing evidence that this plan to bust the unions is underwritten by very wealthy and powerful individuals in this country in order to have an overriding influence in the 2012 national elections.

Does the statement I just wrote sound a little paranoid ? I think it does, but believe me, it's true. I have been listening to National and Wisconsin Public Radio every chance I have, before and after work, watching the news in the evening, reading the mainstream newspapers on line and trying to keep up with the progress of this movement. My head aches sometimes with it all!

What is happening here will have an influence all over the country. Not only public workers are in danger of losing collective bargaining rights, but all workers. Over a hundred years ago, American workers struggled, fought, and died for the right to organize for better working conditions and now the conservatives want to take that away from all of us.

I am witnessing an historic moment. Forgive me if I'm not too concerned with quilting just now. When this is all settled out, I'll go back to my sewing but right now, I have other things to do.

I'll be in touch.

2011-02-08T21:10:00.000-06:00

I had a mini-marathon quilting day yesterday. After my errands and chores were finished, I worked on quilting for the rest of the day. This is the finished blue table runner that I pieced for my little quilting class a couple of weeks ago.

You can't see any of the quilting on it except for a couple of wavy lines along the sides. These are the spines for some fronds I quilted.

I ordered the 2 Diane Gaudynski books on home machine quilting and after studying them a great deal, I decided to use this topper as a sampler and try some of her techniques. My work is nowhere near as good as Diane's but I was quite pleased at how it turned out for a first timer. Here's the back of the topper and I think you can see more detail:

That bump in the center is my attempt at a bird! ;-)

I used a total of 6 of Diane's designs and I will be doing more of this, I think, in order to get better. I've never quilted this densely before because I thought it would give me a very stiff quilt, so I was very surprised after it was washed at how pliable it is.

I also finished putting the borders on the RRCB quilt top. That pieced border took a looooooong time to put together and stitch on. I still am very pleased with how the mystery quilt turned out. I'll put it aside for now and do the quilting later. I have a couple of things that I need to get done in the next few weeks and then I'll be doing some machine quilting on the three tops that are waiting for me. (And I said once that I would NEVER have UFOs lying around the house! Ha!) Here's a pix of the folded top on my dining table--it's so huge that I don't have floor space to lay it out and it's way too nasty outside to hang it from a railing.

Ignore that little circle on the table on the left side. Shortly after I got the table, "some one" set a small cannister of bug spray there and, Voila!, I got a permanent circle on the table. Grrrrrr! I'm waiting for MORE damage to the top before I refinish it. If I have to refinish it, it may as well be because it REALLY needs it!

Favorite Things Friday

2011-02-04T11:11:00.000-06:00

Hmmmm. What is my FTF this week? Could it be. . . being at home on a Friday instead of at work? YES! I believe that's it.

In January, I started having every Monday and Friday off and I absolutely love having the time to do the things I want to without having to rush out the door in order to arrive at work at a reasonable time. That's my FTF today--time.

I wish I could have had this parttime schedule a long time ago--I wonder how or if my life would have been different. I like to think that I would have been a more calm and relaxed person when the kids were younger, and would have mastered some of the things I'm still trying to learn--quilting, cooking, gardening. I would have been more well read--I've only started to pick up the occasional novel again and I like it a lot. I think I would have devoted more time to my friends and would have developed more new friends instead of hanging onto the old ones, who I love dearly, because it's simpler that way. I like to think I would have stayed physically fit longer--it's hard to find the time to workout either before work or after and I've neglected that for a long time.

No matter. The past is gone. Now that I do have the leisure time, I want to use it doing the things I have not done for so many years. Starting today!

What a Day

2011-02-01T16:48:00.000-06:00

I've been gone from work since last Tuesday and I was hit with a couple of huge bricks when I got to work this morning. First I learned that the elderly husband of our recently retired receptionist had died last Saturday of the cancer he'd been battling for the last year or two. She was looking forward to spending a few years with her husband before he passed on and instead she only got a few weeks. My heart goes out to her. Married 62 years to the same person--I can't imagine the adjustment she'll have to make and I hope she's going to be okay.

Not an hour later, I got an email from a good friend telling me that a former co-worker of mine from the old days in Duluth had died unexpectedly last Friday night. We'd worked together for a few years and then went our separate ways. He started a very successful business and for a year or so I worked for him but then I parted and started my business as well. I remember him saying to me, "Stick with me, work hard, and when we retire, we'll vacation in Tahiti." My response was that I wanted to spend my time now with my kids in my own back yard--Tahiti could wait. Did he ever make it to Tahiti? I hope so. This man was only a few months older that me. Makes me wonder if I'm making the best use of my time . I think I am, but I'll make more of an effort to do the things I want to do and be the person I want to be.

Third bombshell of the day came at lunch. One of my co-workers is pregnant for the second time. I hope all goes well for her since her other child is severely disabled and needs a great deal of care. No one has been able to tell his parents the cause of his condition so there's no way of knowing if the second child will be disabled or not. With all my heart, I hope not. This young couple already has so much stress in their lives.

Wow. What a day. My quilt guild is meeting tonight and I was debating whether or not to go on such a blustery and cold evening. After such startling and sad news today, I believe I need to be with the guild for a while.

RRCB--Thanks, Bonnie

2011-01-28T11:47:00.000-06:00

I've been following Bonnie Hunter's blog for several years and I've liked her scrappy quilts. She's at http://www.quiltville.com/ and she specializes in designing scrap quilts. I usually don't do scrap quilts but every so often I have to clear out some of my scraps and left overs to--make room for/justify buying--new fabrics. I turn to Bonnie for a project I can do. I've made some of her mystery quilts but never as they are progressing--I like to wait for the end result to see if I like it. This time, I decided to trust her and I started the Roll Roll Cotton Boll mystery quilt last November I think. If you want to check it out, it's here: http://quiltville.blogspot.com/p/roll-roll-cotton-boll.html

Instead of going through each part and describing all the work involved, suffice it to say, I was overwhelmed at times by all of it. Bonnie saved the most daunting part--600 HSTs for Part 6, I think, and it was too late to quit by then. Great strategy, Bonnie! Anyway, I have the center assembled and am waiting to open the last part of the instructions which is the border, which I assume will be a pieced one since I have a pile of what must be a thousand units left over. Or maybe I made a mistake????

When I came home from Lake Mills last Sunday, I had assembled all the colored blocks except 5. This week I finished that part and I sliced and I diced the neutral blocks and I sewed them back together again. This is what they looked like last week:

This is a close up of the 2 contrasting blocks in the quilt center. If I make this quilt again, which I may very well do, I will forgo the HST and just add a strip of color around the edge. I ended up with way too many of the points getting cut off and I don't like that. Besides, a simple border strip is a lot easier than 600 freakin' HSTs!

And here's the center laid out on my floor. It's very large and with the borders added, it's going to be a giant queen sized quilt. I can't wait to get this one quilted and on my bed. It's just the thing for our dreary snowy winter time and I love it!

I apologize to Bonnie for the whining I did as I went along (not that anyone was listening but still) and I sincerely thank her for designing such a beauty! I'm glad I trusted Bonnie and made this a true mystery quilt.

It's been awhile and I've been busy

2011-01-23T20:01:00.000-06:00

I can't believe January is nearly gone--I'm still recovering from Christmas! A lot has happened in the past few weeks: My trip to Chicago was great! All three of the kids in one place at the same time and NO arguments! What a gift! Lily (and all of us) loved the Shedd Aquarium and I can't wait to go back with more time to study all the displays. We also went to the Adler Planetarium which I thought was a little too scientific for Lily (and me too! ) but a week after our visit, Lily and I were walking back from dinner on a cold, clear and starry night, and she found several constellations that we'd learned about at the planetarium. I would never have thought she'd retain so much--just like a little sponge.

I'm now officially a semi-retired/part time employee, and I love it! I'm supposed to work 2 days one week and 3 days the next week. So what did I do but forget to come to work on the third day of my first week as a PTer! I guess I'm ready and eager for this change. :)

Here's what I've been doing: A little embroidery:

This is a series of 12 designs called "Snowbound" from Bunny Hill Designs here http://www.bunnyhilldesigns.com/
I'm doing this as "bluework" instead of the applique it calls for and I've got 6 of the squares finished. I'll make the alternating blocks in blue and white as well.

This weekend I taught my very first quilting class and I think it was a big success. Last summer 3 of my friends asked me to show them how to make a table runner that I had at my house so we got together to do it this weekend. Was I a little nervous? Yes, since one of the ladies is a retired Home Ec teacher! And I'm not a trained teacher! All were accepting of my clumsiness at times and all nearly finished their table runners. This is the one that I was working on and using to show them how to do things:

I started quilting a meander in the center blocks and ditch stitching around the blocks. I'll do some more elaborate quilting as well but I've not decided what. The pattern is from Gathering Friends here: http://www.gatheringfriendsquiltshop.com/store/index.php and the pattern is from the Runner Crazy book.

I stopped at one of my favorite quilt shops on the way to Lake Mills, http://www.millhousequilts.com/ in "The world's only Waunakee." I found this pattern for a little card holder--I have soooo many punch cards from various quilt shops and other places, like my hairdresser and the store where I buy my bras and undies, and I think this little baby will hold them all. Cards, that is.

I also found some fabrics in the sale room that I liked--at a good price. I decided it was time to use more yellow in my quilting so I picked up some. I got the blue just because I liked it, and the brown check I think will work well for a basket block BOM my guild is doing. I'll use it for all the baskets and use different fabrics for the things in the baskets.

I also found the fabrics I want to use in a throw quilt I'm going to make out of the Moda charm pack I got a few weeks ago. It's the Civil War Homestead line and I also bought the off-white patterned fabric for background and maybe backing for the quilt. I needed something for the border and I found this roll of 7 fat quarters of the same Homestead line.

I think I'll have enough to make a nice pieced border of some kind--I still haven't figured out what pattens I'll use for the center of the quilt much less the borders! As usual, my mind is far ahead of my hands when it comes to quilting!

I listened to the Bears-Packers game on the radio all the way home this afternoon and I'm so sad the Bears lost. I know, I live in Wisconsin and what I just said is blasphemy here, but I can't bring myself to be a Packer fan. Sorry. I made a pot of sausage and shrimp jambalaya for supper to console me and the aroma is driving me crazy with hunger! Time to get some comfort food in me.

2001 happenings

2011-01-05T08:39:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year to everyone! I'm a little slow on the uptake on this since I've been super, super busy in 2011!

Don's in Forida having a great time on the golf course with his buddies. He left on the 31st and managed to drive through the storm that covered the midwest with rain, freezing rain, snow, tornadoes and assorted other bad weather things and now is enjoying temps in the 70's. Maybe I'll go with him next year, ya think?

Today is my last day as a full time employee. I'm taking vacation tomorrow and Friday and next week I'm officially a part timer. Yea!!!! Tonight I pick up Tessa and Lily and we'll go to St. Paul to spend the night before leaving on the early Amtrak to (see below):

Yes, I'm going to Chicago with my daughter and granddaughter. Youngest daughter, Jo, flew in from Austin yesterday to spend a couple of days with her friends in Chi Town and will join us on Thursday and son, Dan, is taking the train on Friday from Milwaukee to spend just the day with us. I've been really rushed to get everything accomplished before we leave and sometimes I wondered if it's worth it at all, but now I'm getting excited and can't wait to get going on this trip. I'll try to remember the camera but don't count on it!

I'm in a guild again. Last fall I decided to join the guild in Menomonie and I love the women in that group! Very open and welcoming to newcomers! We had a meeting last night and it was my turn to bring refreshments (along with others). I couldn't stand the thought of something sweet after all the holiday treats, so I made a platter of mini-kabobs. I used toothpicks and threaded a half black olive, 1/3 leaf of fresh basil, a cherry tomato and a cube of cheese. Pretty, yummy, easy, and quick. They loved them!

Goals for 2011? Not much other than CLEAN MY HOUSE! and MAKE DRAPERIES! I've neglected to do both for far too long and now that I'm a part timer, I have no excuse. I'll let you know if (no, when) I actually accomplish these goals! :)

I finished the quilt!

2010-12-31T11:35:00.000-06:00

My fingers are sore and I'm very tired but the quilts are finished for Harri and Cris. They have been washed and are in the dryer and if the weather permits, they will be with the boys this evening. Both patterns are from the Quilter's World magazine, Feb, 2008 and my sister, their grandmother, had purchased the fabrics before she died in 2009. It has been my great honor and pleasure to complete these quilts for her grandsons. In fact, my last conversation with Jan, a few hours before she died, was of how we were going to work together on making these quilts when she recovered. Jan has been in my thoughts every time I've sat down to work on these quilts--it's as tho she has guided my hands as I sew the patterns.

Here is Hari's "Lunch of the Penguins" quilt. Sorry it's so blurry. It looks a lot clearer in the camera--I don't know how to fix it. The quilt is a large crib sized one and since he's not yet 3, he should do just fine with it. I quilted this one with a horizontal, elongated meander to make it look like the blues are ice. In the outer border I did an ordinary meander. And the penguins I simply outlined and stitched in their bodies along their wings.

Cris's twin sized quilt is called "Arctic Adventure," and it has polar bears and birch trees in the fabrics. This is the one I challenged myself to finish between Monday night and Friday--and it's done!

This quilt gave my so much trouble because I neglected to iron the backing fabric and got a lot of pleats and tucks in it that I had to painstakingly take out and resew. There are still a few tucks in there but I think when it's washed and dried, they'll disappear in the overall puckering of the quilt.
This is a close up of the quilting I did along the inner borders and you can see some of the overall design I did in the quilt center. I repeated the center design in the outer border but added some of the spiraling that I'd used in the inner border. I'm really pleased at how will it turned out despite my screwing up on something so basic!

These are a couple of shots of the pleating I sewed in the back. There was a fold like across the width of the quilt and every time I stitched across that fold, I got a pucker, some worse than others. I ripped out the stitches and used lots of straight pins to flatten the excess fabric--like you do when you're setting in a sleeve--and then carefully stitched over the pins and hoped for the best. Most of the time I only had to do this once.

That's the saga of Harri and Cris's quilts--I hope they like them.

2010-12-29T08:27:00.000-06:00

I'm going to my niece's house for a New Year's Eve party and sleepover. She told me her brother and his family will be there as well. This is the family which has the two boys that my sister, their grandmother, had planned on making quilts for. I finished the penguin quilt for Hari and also the top of the polar bear one for Cris. So I decided to stop procrastinating and get it finished so I can give it to Cris at the same time as I give Hari his quilt.

On Monday evening, I pieced the backing and took everything to work with me on Tuesday. After work I pinned the sandwich together and after dinner last night,I started quilting the center. I was in a hurry on Monday and I didn't bother to iron the backing fabric and last night, after quilting about half of the center, I discovered why the pros always recommend pressing the backing. Wrinkles! Puckers! Pleats! I was really bummed out when I turned the quilt over and discovered these. By midnight I had finished quilting the center and had fixed all the puckering on the back. Never again will I skip the ironing step!

The polar bear quilt is about twin size so it won't take too long to get finished. I'll work on it tonight and I have Thursday and Friday off work, so I'm confident that I'll get it finished. Don is leaving Thursday AM for his Florida golf trip so I won't have any distractions like finding his socks, fixing lunch, checking something that he found on the computer, etc. Just me and my machine--Yea!

I'll try to remember to take the time for pictures and will post them when I have time. I'll keep you posted on my progress as I go along. As always, no wagering on whether I finish it in time. :)

Christmas follow up

2010-12-27T09:13:00.001-06:00

I survived Christmas again! It was a very nice weekend with both my son and daughter and granddaughter with us for the long weekend--Jo was in Texas at Aunt Doris' house along with dozens of cousins! The best Christmas gift--besides no braces--was no arguing among the kids! I think that's a first for this family. Don't know about yours but when my kids get together for too long, an argument inevitably breaks out. Ahhh, tradition!

I found myself wishing they would all leave. I know that sounds really bad. After all, I only see Dan for holidays, about 3 or 4 times a year, but I see Tessa and Lily at least once a week or more. In the middle of Christmas day, I started thinking about the time when we will be going to one of the kids' houses for Christmas and how easy that will be. Less decorating. Much less cooking. And a ton less cleaning up afterwards! Then I reminded myself of people who's children live much farther away and they don't get to see them hardly at all, and I decided it was a good thing to have them all gathered around.

I worked on the Cotton Boll quilt on Thursday while waiting for Dan to arrive and I finished making the green and neutral twosies. I know I'm behind (and I've done a little whining when I know I shouldn't have!) but I hope to have the 600 HST finished before 2010 has ended. It's hard to start such a large project, but I have to, I guess. I did take out some knitting while Tessa and I watched a movie. I'm working on a cap for Jo to take with her to Bulgaria. It's made of a fine yarn on size 6 and 7 needles and, of course, I've made a ton of mistakes. I think I've taken it out and started over again at least 6 times so far. Wish me luck that this time I'll do it properly.

Tessa and Lily went home yesterday morning and in the afternoon, Tessa called to tell me Lily had taken a fall while ice skating and had a sore wrist. It sounded like a sprain to me so I told her to ice it and give Lily some Tylenol. A couple of hours later, Tessa called again to say she'd taken Lily to Urgent Care and wouldn't you know, poor Lily has a broken wrist! Either today or tomorrow she'll get a hard cast put on for the next 6 to 8 weeks. The good thing is she's right handed and broke the left wrist, so she can still do her art work, school work, etc. She says she intends to continue skating even with a broken wrist and I was glad to hear that she's not totally put off skating.

Snow--Teeth--Christmas

2010-12-23T10:51:00.000-06:00

My husband took some pictures of the blizzard we had a couple of weeks ago. Even now, it looks much the same and I think we will have a very snowy winter at my house.
This is the front yard and driveway looking out to our neighbor's farm. We have snowbanks along the drive (after the professional snow plower cleaned it up) about 5.5 feet high. Great snow mountains for Lily!

This is the view from my kitchen window overlooking my deck.

So, I'm having a white Christmas this year. It makes for hard driving to and from work, but we still need moisture after 7 years of both winter and summer drought. It also means that maybe my garden plants won't totally freeze out this year--I'm getting tired of replanting these "perennials" every spring. :)

I am on Christmas vacation today and don't have to go back to work until Monday. Yea!!! Have to do some baking today--finally--and get ready for my son to arrive home this afternoon. Some gift wrapping. And I'm determined to find the tree skirt I made a couple of years ago! We rearranged the storage area and now I can't find one of the Christmas boxes.

I received an early Christmas gift and I love it. On December 6 (is that St. Nickolas Day?) I got the gift of straight teeth. After 1-3/4 years of dealing with very painful and uncomfortable braces, the doc took them off on the 6th and now, instead of having a "snaggle tooth" mouth, I smile with confidence. At my age (retirement is very soon!) I truly debated over having this done. After all, I may very well end up with dentures before long, right? Well, I guess not. The orthodontist predicts that my teeth will last many, many more years. If they could withstand the wrenching, pushing, and pulling that took place to manoever them into a straight line, they'll likely withstand anything the future holds! I'm glad I had this done.

Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates this holiday, and for those of us who celebrate for other reasons, I wish you a time of peace and happiness with family and friends. For those who don't celebrate any holiday at this time, I wish you peace as well.

Rolling, rolling, rolling

2010-12-15T08:55:00.000-06:00

I'm rolling along on Bonnie H's mystery quilt. Last night I finished 10 more 8.5" squares of step 3 and now I only have 10 more to go and I'll be finished with that step. While I'm doing that, I'm neglecting everything else. No cards written or sent. No cookies baked. No decorations up--yet. Friday Lily will come out for the weekend and we always need her to come with us to the tree farm to chose the Christmas tree. That girl has an artist's eye! So that's on the schedule for Saturday afternoon with decorating it on Sunday.

Saturday is our Winter Solstice dinner--only Tessa and Lily will be attending this year. I hope that Lily will help me cook and set a pretty table and generally get things ready. I think she'll be excited to help put out the nice dishes, make a fancy desert, etc--and that will be a help to me as well.

This is my last week of full time work--and it's dragging big time! The next 2 weeks we have thurs and fri off for the holidays and the first week in Jan I'm taking off thurs and fri for the trip to Chicago with the kids. I can't wait to go on the shortened work week--it's been a long time coming. And, as Al Franken's character used to say, I deserve it.

Now it's the B word!

2010-12-12T19:37:00.000-06:00

No pix today. We are snowed in and why would you want to see pix of several feet of snow that the BLIZZARD dumped in our yard? Actually, I think we got between 1 and 2 feet of actual snow on Saturday but the wind was, and is, howling so much that we have drifts that are up to 8 feet high. Poor Don spent about 5 hours in the cold with the snow blower trying to get some of it cleared out so we can get out for work tomorrow--but the wind was blowing it back at a pretty good rate. Frankly, I don't really care if I have to stay home another day--my larder is full, I have lots of fabric to play with and if the power stays on, I'll be watching movies or listening to the radio. If the power goes off, I'll turn on the stove in the porch and snuggle down with a good book. Sounds good to me.

Yesterday and today I spent most of the time working on step 3 of Bonnie Hunter's Roll Roll Cotton Boll mystery quilt. I have about half of the pieced blocks done--only 30 more to go!--and they take sooooo much time! If I wasn't so determined to clear out my scraps, I'd have given up on this quilt long ago. This is the first time I'm doing a mystery quilt as a mystery, and I'm enjoying it. I can't let myself get too far behind, tho, or it'll never get done. Bonnie published part 4 the other day so I have to get going and finish part 3.

Girl Scouting

2010-12-01T11:28:00.000-06:00

I was reading Sam's blog this morning at "All Things Quilty and Sewey" and she included a picture of her old Girl Guide uniform. I got to thinking about my days as a Girl Scout and later as a troop leader for my daughters.

I think I joined GS as a Brownie scout when I was in first or second grade and I love it. My two older sisters were scouts and my older brother was a Boy Scout, so I knew it was going to be fun. I don't remember too much of those Brownie days except for the dance my troop put on for our mothers as part of a big dinner and ceremony for them. We had practiced and rehearsed and practiced again until we were ready. We had beautiful colorful costumes to wear, and we got up on the stage of the auditorium and performed the Mexican Hat Dance to the tune of "La Cucaracha" and it was thrilling! It was the first time I'd been on a stage and I thought this was the best thing ever. Any my mother told me that the dancing was the best she'd ever seen!

I also remember "flying up" from Brownies to Girl Scouts and how grown up I felt--at about 8 or 9 years old! LOL I stayed in Girls Scouts for 2 or 3 years before dropping out in the 6th grade. Like my older sisters, I wanted to go camping and have adventures and earn lots of badges. Unlike my sisters', my troop leaders wanted to do crafts. Every week. Week after week, nothing but crafts. I only went camping once while I was in GS--an overnight winter camp in a bunkhouse/lodge near a frozen lake. We cooked our own food and we went ice skating by moonlight on that lake--so much excitement for a young girl! We made hot chocolate after skating and we got to sleep in bunks that night. I loved that overnight and I wanted to do that every week instead of crafts.

I also went to day camp every summer that I was a scout. I learned lots of GS songs (Make New Friends, etc) and games and I learned to sing in a "round." I wonder if girls do that any more? We made "buddy burners" and cooked grilled cheese sandwiches on top. Our day camp was at a nearby lake and we did everything outdoors and I don't remember every having rain. Isn't that strange? One time I was wading in a creek with a stony bottom and a leech or, as we say in the Midwest, "bloodsucker," attached to my foot. I started screaming and carrying on something terrible, begging the counselors to take it off. They (two girls not much more than high schoolers) refused and said I should be a big girl and take it off myself! While I was screaming and they were refusing, the bloodsucker was making it's way up my leg from my heel almost to my knee. Someone finally plucked up the courage to get the thing off my leg but to this day when I see one of those disgusting things, I still feel like screaming--but I don't.

This is the kind of uniform I wore when I was a GS except I didn't have a cute hat and my dress (yes, we wore dress uniforms, no slacks allowed back then) had short sleeves. I think I may have worn my hair in that "page boy" style as well. I learned to tie a square knot from having to do the tie just right and I can still tie a mean square knot--left-over-right-and-right-over-left.

Well, this is a long post, but I got to thinking about those long gone days of Girl Scouting and just thought I'd write about them. Do any of you have GS memories? Please share them if you do, I'd love to hear your stories.

Another time, I'll write about my adventures as a GS troop leader. Just a hint--quilting was involved.

Waylon Lewis: Happy Buy Nothing Day!

2010-11-26T15:35:00.000-06:00

I heard about Buy Nothing Day a few years ago and I really like the concept of it and this is my favorite thing to post about on this Friday after Thanksgiving.

Waylon Lewis: Happy Buy Nothing Day!

Check out Mr. Lewis' article in the Huffington Post if you're fed up with "Black Friday" craziness as I am. When did spending money and consuming stuff for the sake of spending and consuming become a national pastime? I try to avoid spending anything on the day after Thanksgiving but inevitably, I have to gas up the car or run to the grocery for a few things, as I will do tonight after work. But I'll make up for it another day when I will spend nothing at all.

Ever since I learned about it, I have tried to make a conscious effort to spend TIME with my family and my friends instead of buying them stuff. For instance, the fam agreed that we will draw names and each member gets only one gift for Christmas. The money Don and I would have spent on buying multiple gifts for each one goes toward a holiday experience that we all enjoy. Some years its been a vacation at a ski resort and other years it has been going to the movies together. The important thing is that we participate and enjoy it TOGETHER.

This year I heard about "Buy Small" on Black Friday. That means if you're going to shop, patronize your local hometown stores instead of only the big box stores. Makes sense to me.

I don't advocate not spending at all, but let's keep it sensible. Fighting and shoving and possibly injuring each other, all in the effort to get the "perfect" Christmas gift, doesn't really add much to the season of "Peace on Earth and Good Will Toward All," does it?

2010-11-24T08:55:00.000-06:00

Wishing you have a safe, happy and delicious

Thanksgiving day

with family and friends.

If you're not celebrating the "Big Feast Day" as we do in the US,
I hope you enjoy this day, and every day,
keeping your family and friends nearby.

2010-11-21T21:50:00.000-06:00

"I kinda think I've got my quilting groove back," she whispered. I don't want to jinx it. It just feels good to be working at my machine after such a long time away from it.

This is the quilt I made out of that bundle of 5" squares I bought awhile back. I usually follow someone else's pattern but this one I created myself. Not very complicated, but I like it and I decided to call it "Girls' Best Friend" since it's all diamonds.

It measures 50x59 inches and I quilted it on my Husqvarna Viking in a pattern of a fancy design in the white blocks, a free hand daisy in the colored diamond blocks and a vine with a stylized rose and leaves.

I didn't have enough fabric for the back and since it's an 80 mile round trip to go to the fabric store, I used leftover pieces of the top fabric to make a pieced back.

I took it to work last week to decide if I wanted to put it up for sale in the annual employee craft sale or if I wanted to save it to put in my future Etsy store. When my co-workers saw it, it was sold! On the spot! No question about it! Wow! That felt really good.

When I finished that quilt about 2 weeks ago I turned next to my great nephew's penguin quilt. Three year old Harri is my sister's grandson and she had planned on making him a penguin quilt. When we were going through her apartment after her death a year ago, I ended up with a huge box of things including the pattern and all the fabric for Harri's quilt. So, it was up to me to make the quilt for Harri.

As I was going through the box a few weeks ago, I found a bunch of other fabrics--polar bears and such--that didn't look like they fit with the penguin theme. In the quilt magazine, I found a pattern for a polar bear quilt as well as the penguin quilt, and the light bulb went on. She had planned on making the polar bear quilt for Harri's big brother, Cris!

I've finished the top of the penguin quilt and am taking it to work tomorrow to pin it together. When it's all quilted up, I'll post a picture. Then I have to make up Cris's polar bear quilt, which he doesn't know anything about.

Working on these quilts is a bittersweet task. I'm pleased to be able to finish what Jan wanted to give to her grandsons. I thought about her all the while I worked on Harri's quilt. I know the boys will love these quilts as much as if her hands had done the sewing. I just wish she could be here to keep me company as she used to do when we sewed together at each other's houses.But if she were, we'd get no sewing done because we'd be laughing and giggling so much. :)

TGIF

2010-11-19T16:29:00.000-06:00

I've had a very interesting day, to say the least. I had a full schedule of clients today and all but one canceled. That means I have to contact them and see if they want to reschedule, and it also means that I had time to move my office. Yes, the new employee is showing up Monday morning to start learning my job. A bittersweet day, moving my stuff. I've worked here over 5 years--that's pretty much a record for me since my husband likes to move every five years or so--and I'd really settled in to my office.

I'm looking forward to working with her and teaching her how to do the job, but it's also another step closer to the end of my working career. I'm looking forward to retirement, but it's such a FINAL thing. Does everyone feel as apprehensive as I do as the time draws near? Even though I'm only changing from full time to part time in January, my official retirement day is April 8, 2011.

Believe me, I've resigned from many jobs--because of hubby's wanderlust--but this is such a permanent thing. I know that at my age I'll never be hired again. Don't tell me there's no such thing as age discrimination in this country! If I ever want to work again, I'll have to be a greeter at the wally mart (and I have no intention of doing that!) or I'll have to start my own business (I've done that before and don't know if I have the stamina for it). So this is final.

My boss has suggested that she has other projects that she wants me to do on a part time basis and I'll do that for awhile, but it just feels strange.

This sounds like a very depressing post. I don't feel depressed, just a lot of mixed feelings. I'm sure that I'll be just fine as I progress along this journey to retirement, but I have to admit, it's a different journey than I've ever had and it certainly feels like uncharted territory. Wish me luck!

Follow ups

2010-11-17T10:45:00.000-06:00

I was looking over some of my previous entries and I re-read the one I posted on October 27 about the wind storm. When we checked the roof a few days later with binoculars, quite a few shingles had been ripped off. We had hoped to delay re-roofing until next summer, but now there was no choice. We had a roofer out in a few days and, luckily, there was a run of very nice November weather and they managed to complete the job before the snow fell last weekend. So, now we'll be snug in the house for the winter.

I had mentioned to Don that he might want to call the house insurance company to see if they'd pay for part of the roof--after all, we've paid for years and have rarely if ever made a claim. He didn't think so but he grudgingly called them and found out that they will reimburse us for about 3/4 of the cost! That's a nice gift! See Don, you should always listen to me and do what I tell you. ;)

#2 follow-up (or as they say in medical records--fu) Lily has lost more teeth. Last week the second upper front tooth came out and yesterday, the first bottom tooth detatched. there's another loose bottom tooth which will probably come out soon. She'll be missing her 4 front teeth for Christmas! I'll get a picture of her beautiful smile when I can.

I think that's it for today. Back to work.

Where Eagles Soar

2010-11-10T17:25:00.000-06:00

I live in a part of the US which is fortunate to have seen a resurgence of the Bald Eagle, America's national bird.

As recently as 50 years ago, it was a rarity to see a bald eagle where I live. Sometimes we would see one at the wilderness camp on the Ontario/Minnesota border where I spent my college summers, and occasionally I would see one while camping in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. The dark wings and body soaring above--not knowing if it was a large hawk, raven or whatever--then the body turning such that you can see a flash of white and then both head and tail flashing white! Knowing for sure it's a Baldy! I always get a thrill when I see one.

And now, I see an eagle almost every day on my way to work. I'll look out the car window and there it will be, flying above me, almost as though it's guiding me on my journey. Every day I pass an eagles's nest on my way to work--high in an old pine tree, those things are massive! Sometimes, I'll see an eagle on the ground. They like to feed on deer carcasses along the roadside and sometimes there will be one in the middle of a plowed field, checking out something. When we lived in a house on a river, I saw an eagle swoop down right in front of the house to catch a fish--it was amazing!

I like to think that spotting a bald eagle is an omen of good luck, but I'm not sure it really works. Some days just seem to go better than other, eagles or not. I've never seen a bald eagle up close other than in pictures and I think they really are rather ugly and fierce looking things but up in the sky--majestic!

My favorite thing this Friday is celebrating the return of the Bald Eagle!

Jack-O-Lanterns

2010-10-31T12:41:00.000-05:00

Which is the better Jack-O-Lantern?

Lily, with her one missing tooth and very wiggly other teeth?

Or Jack, which she created last night?

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Fave Things Friday

2010-10-29T10:57:00.000-05:00

As always, I was at a loss as to my favorite thing today. Here's my thinking process: Last night I finished the pieced backing for the little throw quilt I've been procrastinating about for weeks, and I cut the batting to fit. Brought it to work today, thinking I'll use the tables in one of the conference rooms after work to lay it out and pin baste it all together. Then, it occurred to me: My favorite thing today is to pin baste a quilt on a table so I can move on to the joy of machine quilting it.

For anyone who's not familiar with pin-basting a quilt, there are good instructions here: crazy mom quilts: one way to baste a quilt. The only thing I do different is work on a table instead of crawling on the floor--those days are gone for good!

I enjoy choosing the fabrics to make a quilt, piecing it together on the machine, basting the quilt "sandwich," machine quilting it in fancy designs, and even hand sewing the binding--all the steps of quiltmaking. But I most enjoy snuggling under the finished quilt OR seeing the look of pleasure on the face of the one to whom I've given the quilt.

Whatever you do today, whether it be quilting or another activity, I hope you enjoy the process as much as I enjoy mine.

Yikes! It's the S_ _ _ word!

2010-10-27T10:51:00.001-05:00

Indeed, it was SNOWING when I left home for work this morning. Coming down, frosting the roofs, dusting the grasses in the wayside. This is one heck of a storm here in the midwest. Yesterday, Superior WI set the record for low pressure in WI. Radio said it was equal to a category 2 or 3 hurricane low pressure, but not as destructive. Last night, as I lay in bed listening to the wind howl and rip at my house, I couldn't imagine how it would be in a real hurricane. I was afraid all evening that the windows would blow out and in bed, I swear I could hear the roofing nails being pulled out. It was too dark this morning to check the roof for shingle damage, but I will tonight.

I hope all this blows over in another day or two instead of developing into another gi-normous snowstorm like the one we had for Halloween over 15 years ago. At that time, I was working in Duluth and had a 75 mile commute home. The snow started falling heavy on Thursday afternoon and I decided to leave work around 3, I think. I arrived home about 8 pm, following a snow plow most of the way. Earlier, Don had taken the girls trick-or-treating around town but after a half hour or so, they gave up and came home. Hard to run from house to house, in costume (under the parka) in foot high snow! No one went to work or school on Friday--we stayed home and tried to keep up with the shoveling--and the storm lasted until Sunday. When it was all finished blowing around, we had between 4 and 5 feet of snow on the ground at our house!

Ahhh. Life in the Northland--ain't it great!

My New Purse

2010-10-25T18:48:00.001-05:00

A while ago I decided to knit myself a purse and felt it. I've done this before for others but, since the purse I was using was being held together by a safety pin, I decided it was time to make one that I would keep. Besides, I need that pin for basting my next quilt. :)

It was pretty large, soft and flexible. Would have made a great bulky knit sweater, I think. I washed it in hot water in my machine along with a bath towel. It came out somewhat smaller but VERY heavy and wet, so I decided to throw it in the drier for 10 minutes. I don't recommend you do this unless you're willing to end up with a teeny tiny coin purse, but this time, it worked great! After these few minutes on high heat, it had shrunk up perfectly and was nearly dry. I stuffed it with a bath towel and set it out to finish drying overnight

The next night, I embellished it with a fringe made of leftover yarns, added the knobby thing, and Voila!, it was finished! I like the way it looks. It's very thick and strong from all the wool shrinking up, and it holds all my stuff as well as the old one did. That one? It went into the garbage a couple of days ago--but I saved the pin!

Here's the finished product:

2010-10-25T13:42:00.000-05:00

I'm being very lazy these past few weeks. I was at 2 days of training earlier this month and we celebrated 10 years of the Disability Benefits Specialist program in Wisconsin and maybe that has made my lethargic. I don't know why--I'm very proud to be one of the 70 DBSs in the state and I'm very proud of the work we all do.

I have arranged with my supervisors for my transitioning out of full time work and last week, I learned that the top applicants will be interviewed today. I was kind of shocked to hear that--it's really becoming true--I really am going to be retired before long! Yikes! That's a life changing event for anyone, I think. And today, all the interviewees are stopping by my office to meet the staff and see the office layout here and to ask me any questions about the job.

The arrangement that we have is that the new DBS will be hired this fall and there will be a couple of months where we both will be working full time. Later, in January, I'll be dropping down to half time work for a few months in order to help train my replacement and to help manage the work load. I'm really looking forward to having more time off to do the things I want to do but still, it's a big change.

Maybe that's why I don't seem to have the energy I used to have. I don't know. Last night I forced myself to make a vampire cape for Lily to wear this Halloween and that seemed to help get me started again. I found a long black velvet skirt at Goodwill that I cut up the back seam and lined with some sparkly red satin. Added a tie and it's good to go! I've been teaching her to say, "I vant to drrrrink your bloood!" and she's getting pretty good at it!

After making the cape, I realized that my sewing table was uncluttered for once, and I plan to procede with the pieced backing for the lap throw I'm working on. I also finished the knitted and felted purse that I'd started--Pix of that to follow.

Maybe it's just the fall weather and short days--it gets dark so soon after work. Nothing to be done about that except wait until winter when the days grow long again. Or, I could move to Australia for the next 6 months. I like that idea! :)

Favorite Things Friday

2010-10-22T09:06:00.000-05:00

Wow! How do I choose a favorite thing for this day? There are a lot of things I really love, like my husband, children and granddaughter. Oh yes! I just thought of my favorite thing today.

I'm so greatful that Don and I have reached the stage in our lives where we've finished raising kids, have paid off (most) of our debt and have a bit of extra cash to play with. I love to travel but haven't done nearly as much as I would like to. Don usually travels only to golf courses unless I pitch a fit and force him to go on a vacation with me--and then he loves it! The best we can do is plan a vacation where he can bring his clubs and spend some time on the course while I do what I like and then we do some things together. We spent a week in Bayfield WI (one of my favorite places in WI) a couple of years ago with Lily and while he played golf on a most beautiful course, Lily and I went to the beach and enjoyed Lake Superior. Everyone was happy!

So, this year, he's going to spend a week or so with family and friends in Florida in January, playing golf, of course! I've decided to take a trip as well and what we've worked out so far is a long weekend in Chicago with 2 of my kids coming in from Milwaukee and Austin and Tessa and Lily and I taking the train from here. It's not too often that all of us can get together and I can't wait for the trip! Lily is 6 1/2 and interested in science and nature so we'll go to the Shedd Aquarium , The Field Museum and if we have time, the Adler Planetarium. She's going to love it, and since I've never vacationed in Chicago--just passed through on my way to somewhere else--I'm going to love it as well.

So, my favorite thing this Friday is a winter vacation with my family in the Windy City! (I know, I know. Some of you are cringing at the thought of winter in Chicago, but hey, when you live in a cold climate, you have to embrace it and not let it stop you from doing what you like!)

Little Bluebell: Bliss Giveaway

2010-10-22T09:01:00.000-05:00

Do you need more fabric? Sign up here: Little Bluebell: Bliss Giveaway for another giveaway.

¡Hurra por Chile!

2010-10-13T09:23:00.000-05:00

I watched the first and second trapped miners coming up from the Chilean mine last night and had tears in my eyes as they emerged. What a wonder of technology that not only have they been rescued but that they are all alive and in relatively good health! Absolutely amazing! And kudo's to the Chilean government who was pushing this rescue all the way--and allowing the world to participate in the rescue efforts. Talk about transparency!

As I write this, 13 miners have surfaced--I'll keep watching until the last miner and rescuer has been pulled to safety. Again, HURRA POR CHILE!

Fall Pix

2010-10-12T06:25:00.000-05:00

The weather was nothing short of glorious this past weekend at my house. Sunny, warm and perfect for being outdoors. Lily spent Saturday night with us and she said she would like to go on a leaf hike on Sunday. So we did. We spent an hour or more prowling along the trails in the hills behind the house, gathering leaves so she can make a leaf collection. Of course, I forgot the camera but I returned later in the day to take some pix of the views from the high points on the ridge. A few clouds had begun to gather by then so these pix aren't as brilliant as in the morning, but I still want to share with you.

Most of the red maple leaves have dropped and a lot of the birch as well. What we have now are the dark red-brown oak leaves and the remaining golden birch.
The best thing about the hike--other than spending time with Lily--was how well my knee held up! I've not been able to go hiking for nearly a year, and I am so grateful to be able to be out there again.

Favorite Things Saturday

2010-10-09T12:00:00.000-05:00

Story of my life--a day late, a dollar short. Oh well, here's my FTF entry--on Saturday.

About 10 years ago, I bought a shallow pottery dish to use as a fruit bowl, but after awhile, it developed a crack and eventually cracked open completely one day last spring. Oh well, things don't last forever, right? I've been using a different bowl but it's a bit too deep to be a fruit bowl. So last weekend when I was with my friend, we went to nearby Cambridge WI to find a replacement. None to be had at the local pottery so we went along the country roads where there are a number of small independent potters, and there it was waiting for me! And here it is --my new fruit bowl!--with fruit even!

(You might notice there are holes in the bottom of the bowl and on the side as well. That's because it's not really a bowl but a strainer! Shhhh--don't tell anyone. I say it's a fruit bowl. That's my story and I'm sticking to it)

And since I'm a day late for FTF, I'll do a second favorite thing--my baking center. We put in a new kitchen about 5 years ago and I designated one area as a baking center. This means the counter top is a couple of inches lower than usual since I'm short and have to stand on a stool when I'm rolling out dough and doing other baking things on a standard height counter. I designed the center to have enough shelving for mixing bowls, baking ingredients like soda and extracts, and so forth and below, there are pull-out shelves for bins of sugar and flour and all my baking pans. I also had some wine bottle cubbies built because you know, baking always goes better with a little wine! LOL And the final feature of this center, as well as throughout the kitchen, is under cabinet lighting--wonderful!

So, now you know two of my favorite things in my house. I think I'll go make an apple pie. ;)

F.T.F.

2010-10-01T08:25:00.000-05:00

My husband is having a golf weekend with his buddies and the four of them will take over the house. I'm leaving! After work tonight, I'm driving to my friend, Elaine's, house in So WI for the weekend. She is one of my favorite things and today I'll tell you about her.

Because of my husband's work--and his wanderlust too--I have lived in 9 different towns since we were married nearly 39 years ago. I've met lots of wonderful people in each community , but, ya know, it gets hard to keep those friendships going over all these years. I got caught up with my kid's activities, running my business, adjusting to each new town and sometimes, new jobs as well. People grow apart if there aren't common threads strong enough to last a long time. So I don't keep in touch with a lot of my old friends as I should.

I can count on one hand the really, really good friends I have. Friendships that have lasted many years and still seem fresh. Friends who are more close to me than my sisters were. Elaine is one of these sister-friends and I love spending time with her. She and I met when our youngest daughters were beginning orchestra in middle school. We discovered that we each needed an exercise partner and we began walking together every morning for the next several years--until I moved away from that town. We shared our triumphs and joys on those early morning walks as well as our sorrows and despair at times. We counselled each other about our "unique" daughters and what to make of them. We supported each other when our husbands seemed the dumbest men on earth. When 9/11 happened, we turned to each other for support in what seemed to be very dark days for our country.

Now I see Elaine about 3 or 4 times a year either at her house or mine. She has a very dry sense of humor that I love and her favorite saying is, "Oh well" with a kind of up-and-down inflection on the "well." Cracks me up! She's a very classy and yet casual person and people always feel comfortable in her home and in her presence. This weekend, we'll spend hours talking--over a couple glasses of wine. :) We're planning on going to a pottery in a nearby town where I hope to get a new fruit bowl--or not. We may go to the nearby state park where there are ancient Woodland Indian artifacts--or not. We may play cards all afternoon--or not. Without our husbands (hers is one of the golfing buddies who'll be at my house) we'll do whatever we damn well please.

So my Favorite Thing on this Friday is a person--my best friend, Elaine. I'm so glad you are part of my life.

My favorite season

2010-09-24T08:54:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, it was cloudy but not raining as I drove to work, and I pondered the beauty of Autumn. Here is N WI we are seeing the leaves turning colors and when you look off at the hills that surround my house, there is predominantly green still, but clusters of reds, oranges and yellows are appearing. Sumac is turning deep red--almost a merlot color. Ragweed is brilliant yellow in all the ditches and some fields. There are purple asters blooming here and there as well. The corn fields are nearly all golden and almost ready for harvest and the soybean fields are moving into their brown color and getting ready for harvest a little while after the corn. The hay/alfalfa fields are still bright green and I think the farmers may get a bonus cutting this fall.

Even in the cloudy weather we've been having, the colors of Autumn are shining. On a sunny day, it just takes my breath away! I wish we could have Autumn all the time--clear, intense blue skies, the maple reds and birch yellows against the forest greens of the pines, crisp dry air (warm in the day and chilly at night). When I was a girl, there would be the scent of wood smoke on most days as folks burned their leaves, but that's not allowed now. I've always loved Autumn for it's beauty and for the sadness that accompanies that beauty. You know that the changing colors in the leaves and in the plants means they're getting ready for their death or dormancy and that the world will soon be barren and covered in a blanket of snow. I always feel poignant about life in the Autumn and savor each shortening day to the fullest. In this season, I want to be in my home instead of in my office, so I can enjoy Mother Nature in her last glorious days before the end.

By noon yesterday, it was pouring rain. That continued all day--sheets of rain falling ALL DAY LONG! But it was surprisingly warm while it was raining! When I got home, I checked the rain gauge and we had well over 2 inches with more coming down. I think it stopped sometime last night but this morning, everything was still wet so I don't know if it rained again over night or if that was left over from yesterday. I knw that all the trees and bushes need this rain if they are going to survive the frozen drought during the winter months, so it's really a good thing. We've had 7 years of below average moisture here so I know we need all the rain we've received this summer, but enough is enough! Soon the rivers will be overflowing--one small creek that I cross on my way to work had already broken over it's banks by this morning.

Enough of all this weather talk. Today is cloudy and warm again but windy so I'm hoping these clouds will blow out and we'll have a sweet weekend. Planning on going to Duluth on Saturday and if it's sunny and clear, it will be one wonderful day!

Goodbye Facebook

2010-09-19T20:25:00.000-05:00

My daughter was at the house today and she helped me "deactivate" my Facebook account. She made me promise to never complain about Facebook again. I noticed that my account isn't deleted but only "deactivated." So, I guess it'll be there forever--I'll never get rid of it as long as I live. Wow, I think that's as close to immortality that I'll ever get!

I decided to get a Facebook account last winter since everyone else seems to have one and I thought I'd try it out. The problem is that I simply found the whole experience way too invasive of my personal space--it was too creepy when I got hundreds of emails from people I've never heard of, asking me to be their friend. That was just the first day! Yikes! I've never been that popular in the "real"world but suddenly I was the most popular girl in the class--virtually speaking! Occasionally I'd go to my wall and read all the one line comments my "friends" had made and I kept thinking, "Why would you ever think I care about that?" And I saw pix and read entries from my kids that I really don't think I need to see and read! When I was their age, everything I did I kept secret from my Mom!

No. Facebook just did not connect with me. Must be a generational thing--Couldn't possibly be my attitude, could it?

Peppers and quilts

2010-09-19T15:54:00.000-05:00

Today, I harvested jalapeno peppers from the garden and put them in the dehydrator. I've never used a dehydrator before but people at work swear by them, so I thought I'd give it a try. Don planted about 6 jalepeno pepper plants in the garden--what was he thinking?--and I didn't have any idea how to preserve them, so we'll try drying them and see what happens. Now the entire house reeks of hot pepper aroma! Fortunately, it doesn't make your eyes water or anything like that. Also, fortunately, I remembered to put gloves on before I started cutting the peppers. I can't imaging how my hands would be burning if I had forgotten to do that!

I also will be drying some carrots as well--I think they will do fine in the soup pot this winter. If I had any tomatoes, I'd try them as well, but my plants all got consumed by fungus this year, the worst it's ever been. Next year, we're using plastic to try to protect them from the fungus. And I have green peppers that will go into the dehydrator as well.

I'm spending the rest of the afternoon being lazy. While I'm watching tv, I decided to make needed repairs on this quilt:

This is the sampler quilt I made in the year-long quilting class I took in 2000 or so. It was held at the local JoAnne Fabrics store in the town where we lived then and my teacher was Sandy, one of the best, in my opinion. There were about 6 of us in the class and we all signed up for a 3 month course, meeting every Monday night at the store. The youngest member was a kindergarten teacher in her early 20's and the oldest was retired and in her early 80's, I think. When the first 3 month session was finished, we took a break for a few weeks and then started another 3 month session, until we had completed the year and had finished the quilt.

Because the class was sponsored by JoAnne, I bought all my supplies and fabrics from that store and I've been fairly satisfied with how they've held up. I used a polyester batt in this quilt because I only tied it. I remember that I couldn't afford to have it machine quilted by a long-armer and I didn't think I could machine quilt it myself, so I tied it. The repairs I made today were to restitch the binding. For some reason, I used a poor thread to stitch the binding and it was all coming apart. So now it'll be good for a while longer.

What I appreciate about this quilt is that it shows how far I've come in my quilting. My points don't match as well as they should, some seams are beginning to come apart, the applique is not very good, and I don't like the colors I chose at all. I've learned a lot since then and I like to look at this quilt sometimes to see how far I've come. Then I look at other people's quilts and see how far I have to go. Always there's the challenge to improve. Regardless of all the errors in this quilt, it's still wonderful to snuggle into on a cold winter's night. And that's what it's about.

Folk Art store update

2010-09-14T08:53:00.000-05:00

You may remember that last January, I met with a group of 6 wonderful women and we began to create a folk art co-operative. Here's what's happened to this project over the past 7 months.

Our vision was to offer classes in a wide variety of the folk arts, provide gallery space in our store for member artists to display and sell their creations, open a retail shop selling the raw materials for folk artists, and to provide a gathering space for artists and the community to use. As we worked on setting up the legal parts of the co-op, writing the by-laws and the business plan, and renovating the store for opening day, I began to have serious questions about one of the members' ability to work as a team member. When I spoke with her privately, she laughed and said she did things her way. When I brought up issues at several board of directors' meetings, I received very little support from the other women. Privately, some of them shared that they had concerns about this person as well, but in the meetings, they did not support me as I tried to confront this one person.

By early May, I'd had enough and realized that this person was going to run the business as she chose, regardless of the policies the board set down and regardless of the illegality of some of what she was doing. I resigned from the board of directors and withdrew my membership in the co-op. I was fortunate to get a full refund of my investment. In June, another member also resigned and withdrew her membership and she too, received a full refund of her investment.

I kept in touch with other members on the board throughout the summer and it seemed as though things went from bad to worse. More and more members resigned from the board until by early August there were only 2 members left and the one troubling member who was managing the store and therefore, not an official board member. State law requires that a co-op have a minimum of 3 members on the board of directors and our by-laws require a 5 member board.

I received word in August, that these three members had cancelled the board of directors' elections which had been scheduled for mid July and had gone further to move to dissolve the co-op. This was done without either the knowledge or consent of the remaining co-op members. Both state law and our by-laws require the majority consent of the members to dissolve the entity. When I learned that the co-op had been summarily dissolved, my first question was what will become of the store? The store is a business of the co-op and should have been put up for sale by the board. What did these three ladies do? They "gave" it to themselves. As far as I know, no money changed hands. They simply took over the store for themselves. All the fixtures were purchased with co-op money. The lease is in the co-op name. The goods for sale in the retail part of the store were purchased by the three individuals and were being sold on a consignment basis--not a very productive way to conduct business. The remaining members of the co-op received partial refunds of their investments.

Last weekend, I read an article in a local magazine about the store. There is no mention of the co-op at all and it sounds as though these 2 women have created this store on their own. The third remaining woman isn't referred to at all in the article so I don't know what happened to her.

I was very upset last May when I decided to withdraw from the whole project. I had lots of questions: Should I hang in there and keep trying? What else could I do to correct the situation? Am I crazy for thinking there's a problem since the others didn't support me? What made my decision was the realization that I dreaded going to the weekly board meetings and always came home angry and with a headache. This was supposed to be a satisfying outlet for my creativity and it was becoming a struggle over everything as I tried to hold her to the vision of the co-op and to the policies. Life is too short to spend it on this kind of crap, I thought.

I feel very angry about what this member has done. As time went on, it became more and more clear that this member's goal was to have a store of her own but without having to spend her own money. I believe she used the co-op members and their money to set up her store and in my mind, that simply thievery. To top it all off, this woman claims to have a Masters in Divinity and she goes about preaching in the area churches, while she's robbing people of their money in this way!

I am working very hard to put all this behind me. I try not to think of it because when I do, I become angry again and I don't want to be angry any more about it. When I read the magazine article, I decided to respond and send a letter to the mag to set the record straight. I'm waiting for several days before I send it off--I don't want to write this letter in anger and end up being sued for slander or something!

So, our little group of the remaining 4 women have made plans to gather together to work on our crafts and possibly to start teaching some of what we know. We may create a folk school in the future, but the lessons I learned from this experience will serve me well if we decide to go forward with another venture.

So, that's what happened to the Folk Art co-operative.

Anniversary time

2010-09-12T19:03:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow I celebrate my 5 year anniversary at work. Seems like only a few weeks ago I started there and it's hard to believe I'm looking at retirement at the end of the year. I'm very fortunate to have the great boss that I have. Char believes in hiring good people and then leaving them alone to do their jobs. Only once before have I had a boss as good as Char. I was speaking with him once about a family I was working with, expressing doubt that I was doing a good job with them. Mark just looked at me and said, "Of course, you can do this. I wouldn't have hired you if I didn't think you were capable." What a beautiful thing for me to hear--that your supervisor has complete faith in your ability! Wow! Well , Char's the same way and I have blossomed under both Mark's and her supervision.

I also have a great team of co-workers by my side everyday. All of us do somewhat different jobs, and we all do them very well. There are a couple of co-workers who irritate me at times, but, Hey! I'm not complaining! To work with a very competent team with only occasional irritants is a very good thing. There's always someone who rubs you the wrong way--we just have to deal with it, right? Most of the time, one or the other is cracking a joke or doing something to make us laugh. I've had other people who work in the building say they wish their departments did things together like we do. We've been bicycling and canoeing together, gone to theater and movies together. We have a pot luck every month and we have some really great cooks! No, I can't complain about my co-workers.

So, to celebrate, I'm bringing cake for everyone. I always make my cakes from scratch and there are several kinds that the gang at work particularly like. For this anniversary, I couldn't decide what kind of cake to bring and then it dawned on me--It's MY celebration so I made MY favorite cake. I've always liked carrot cake with pineapple and pecans and a cream cheese frosting. No calories in that cake! After my first child was born, I was breastfeeding him and was hungry all the time. I knew I had to "eat healthy" so I chose carrot cake. While I was breast feeding him full time, I consumed an entire 9x13 carrot cake every week--for snacks! The best thing is, I kept losing weight like crazy! Well, that all stopped when the baby started eating solids and I kept eating cake! To this day I love carrot cake and every year, I plan on making one for my birthday cake and I never do. So, for this anniversary celebration, it's carrot cake!

School Dresses

2010-09-08T19:24:00.000-05:00

Monday and Tuesday I spent sewing for Lily. She wanted a couple of school dresses and I talked her into going with jumpers and blouses instead. (I have never enjoyed setting in sleeves so I avoid it whenever I can.) Here are the finished products:

I also spent some time working on that throw I'm making out of the "cake-thing" bundle of squares I bought last week. It's all together now and I've marked the more intricate quilting designs. Just have to prepare a backing and get it pinned together and start quilting.

I usually just free-hand a stiple or meander design or use Golden Threads paper with the design on it. On this one, I decided to mark the top before making the quilt sandwich. Brother, I know why people complain about marking the quilt top! Boring! Tedious! Hard on the Back! Takes waaay too much time! But. . . (and this is important) I think I may end up with a better quilt when I'm done. I'll post when I'm finished and you can be the judge.

Labor Day, 2010--Reflections

2010-09-06T19:57:00.000-05:00

I spent the afternoon at my sewing table working on a new school dress for Lily. I always have the radio on when I sew--the "Ideas Network" of Wis Public Radio--and, I swear, every show today had some connection to labor, working, and etc. So, after 4 hours of this, of course, I'm thinking about Labor Day tonight. My family rarely does anything special for Labor Day--no picnics, ball games, weekend at the cabin, etc--that many others enjoy. We usually just stay home and try to get caught up on yard work and gardening.

Today was no different, but I want to express how pleased I am to be able to take a holiday from my job. How pleased I am to have a job at all. For all of the people who are unemployed or underemployed this year, take heart and know that these days will fade and you will be working again very soon, we all hope.

This holiday was created in the 1890's just after a huge, cruel strike at the beginning of the labor movement in the US. Over the past century, it has come to be a salute to the hard working, industrious American worker, to give credit to the laborers who made this country an industrial power, and to applaud the efforts of all those union organizers and members who risked life and limb (in the early days) in order to obtain benefits for all workers.

One of the radio shows today referred to the ILGWU--the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union. Do you remember the song they sang in their commercials asking us to buy American? "Look for the union label..." I recall seeing that ILGWU logo in the labels of blouses and and skirts I bought in the 70's. What happened to this union? Wikipedia says that there were a series of mergers with other unions and now they are part of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union. Today, these 2 unions have a combined membership of about 250,000, down from the 450,000 members of the ILGWA at it's height in 1969.

What happened to these workers? It was very easy for employers to move their factories from the unionized North to the South where unions were practically non-existent and wages were much lower. As well, employers didn't have to provide the benefits that unionized workers received. Later, even these jobs were sent overseas in order to take advantage of ever cheaper labor. Leaving too many American unemployed or underemployed.

I don't know how we can bring jobs back home. Or if we should concentrate on creating new kinds of jobs. Maybe the US as a manufacturing country is finished and we need to set a new course, but I don't know what that would be. I hope someone smarter and more creative than I comes up with something, because too many people are out of work or are working way too hard to simply make ends meet.

A hundred years ago, the unions fought for workers and obtained a lot of benefits that we take for granted today. I don't know if staying with unions is helpful in this century or a hinderance. I just hope that we start getting more jobs for Americans, jobs that pay a decent wage, and that this recession will soon end. I hope that the recesson will end in all the countries of this world as well and these unemployed people will be able to provide for their families better than they can now.

All said, I enjoyed my holiday and am looking forward to going to work tomorrow. I hope you do too.

2010-09-05T10:51:00.000-05:00

A while ago (last May), I posted this pix of my crappy, chipped, broken-handles dishes and announced that since I had made new placemats, I needed to get new dishes.

Well, I got totally fed up with the cracks, chips, and discolorations the other day and ordered the new ones. They arrived Friday and I love them!

This is a place setting and it comes with this MUG instead of cup and saucer! I'm in heaven!

With the old dishes, my tables linens were restricted to colors that would go with the brown and green stripes. With these creamy white dishes, I can use any colors I like! My mind is a whirling rainbow of ideas for placemats and napkins and table runners and quilts--Oh, My!

Now I have to clear out the old dishes and take them to Goodwill for someone else to use and to make space for these beautiful new ones. I believe we will have a FINE dinner on these plates tonight even if it's just mac and cheese. ;)

Quilting news from Wisconsin

2010-09-01T12:06:00.001-05:00

Yes, I sat at my machine last night and began stitching a throw quilt.

I had extra time between home calls yesterday so I stopped in to the LQS and found the prettiest packet of pre-cut 5" squares by Moda. I think the packet is called something--layer cake, cup cake, pancake or something like that. So last night, before I could take a picture of them, I was stitching the squares to plain cream colored 5" squares that I'd cut and was turning them into 1/2 square triangle blocks. I will make the quilt center with rows of these blocks, add a three-strip narrow border with some coordinating fabric and then a 5" or 6" border of a large print coordinating border to finish it off.

Why am I making this quilt? Well, the little squares of fabrics began whispering my name as soon as I stepped foot in that shop and by the time I got to where they were displayed, I could hear them so clearly shouting, "Take us home!" So I had to.

Our neighbor's son is getting married in November and I think this will be a nice quilt to give as their wedding gift. I'm so glad I worked on this project last night. I was beginning to think I was never going to get back to quilting. It felt really GOOD to be sewing again--I think I've got my groove back again--quilt-ily speaking, that is.

Sunday afternoon

2010-08-29T12:49:00.000-05:00

What a beautiful part of the week--Sunday afternoon. It's quite warm and breezy here and I'm waiting for Lily and her mom to arrive for swimming and playing all afternoon.

Last week was full moon week and it was absolutely crazy at work! After reading a few other blogs, it sounds as though a lot of people had wicked crazy weeks as well. We all managed to make it through ok and I, for one, have embraced the weekend. Friday night, one of my best friends and soul sister, and her husband arrived for the weekend and it started off great. For dinner, I made a penne pasta dish with chicken and green beans, from the garden, in a mild cream sauce and chopped hazelnuts for garnish. Yumm! It reminds me of my last trip to Mt Ranier in Washington state where the menue liberally included hazelnuts as garnish.

On Saturday, the rest of the visitors arrived--2 additional couples--and the party really got started. We were swimming, playing water volleyball, visiting, eating and drinking, etc. all afternoon and evening. Into the hot tub after dark but the mosquitoes chased us inside the house. Brunch this morning and more visiting and they were all on their way by 11 o'clock.

Since Don and I had worked like banshees preparing for this weekend house party, we have no yardwork, housework, gardening, or anything to do today. He suggested a day of R&R and I agree.

Yesterday, before the other couples arrived, I managed to finish the table runner I'd started in June. This was made with fabric I'd purchased in April when I was shop hopping with my friend--I got the fabric that she seemed to particularly like, planning to make her a gift of this runner. Started sewing it in June when I was laid up with my knee surgery and only managed to finish it now in the nick of time. She likes it, and I'm pleased.

The four women here this weekend made plans for a quilting weekend in the end of January since 2 of them want to learn how. This will be great fun, I think, since it's going to be at someone else's house--not here! Now, I'm putting on my swimsuit and going into the water to cool off.

2010-08-25T08:05:00.000-05:00

My daughter has rediscovered the library. She takes Lily there and she remembered that she used to love to read but for some reason, stopped. She had finished a book she checked out of the library and on Sunday, was looking around my house for something else to read. I recommended one of my favorites, "Snow Falling on Cedars" by David Guterson, which she took home with her. Yesterday, she said she loves the book and can't put it down! I'm amazed--one of my kids is enjoying the same book as me!

Joy, Joy, Joy

2010-08-23T08:12:00.000-05:00

http://theripplesproject.org/

I learned about the Ripples Project several years ago and I get an email from Paul every Monday morning. There are a couple of quotes and a paragraph or two from Paul giving some advice to carry throughout the week. This week, I want to share with you, part of what he has to say.

"We don't always get to choose what happens in our day, we don't always get to choose the people we are around. We can always choose how we respond to these events and people, and we can choose joy even when that isn't our first reaction. Anger is the right choice sometimes and so is sadness, and all the other emotions as well. Just remember that joy is also available to you, waiting for you to choose her. She can transform any ordinary moment into a miracle!"

Sometimes I have to look very hard to find it, but usually, there's something that's positive, even in the worst of times. A frivolous example: I thought I would finish my shawl last night and I was binding off the last row when I realized the I'm short about 10" of yarn to finish the thing. So this morning, I learned how to "unknit" a bound off edge, something I'd not known before. I'm also learning--AGAIN!--to be patient and persevere.

I heard a folktale about a man who arrived at a village riding a donkey. They stayed the night and in the morning, he discovered that his donkey was missing. The entire village searched everywhere, high and low, for hours to find the donkey but there was no sign of him. When they returned to the village, they found the man dancing and singing that he was such a lucky man. The villagers asked him why he thought he was "lucky" since he'd lost his donkey. He said he was lucky because he could have been riding the donkey when it got lost and he would have been lost too!

Joy. Find some today.

Family time

2010-08-22T11:04:00.000-05:00

Lily is here for the weekend since her mom had to work Saturday am and then decided to spend Sat night with us, and son, Dan, came, home from Milwaukee for the weekend as well. Now, let me clarify that under normal conditions, even though my "kids" are all in their 20's and 30's, when they get together under the same roof for more than 2 or 3 hours, an argument of gigantic proportions usually breaks out and there's tension for the rest of the visit. This time, however, all is going smoothly! I guess there really are miracles! On the other hand, we still have a few hours to go before one or the other departs, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

It is hot here again! Those few Fall-like days we had earlier were just teasers! BBQ ribs on the barbie for supper with the last of the sweetcorn--Yummmmmm. Flies all over the place--especially inside the house. YUCK! That's summer in Wisconsin!

After supper last night, we all watched a PG rated movie, "The Fantastic Mr. Fox." What a gem! It's rated PG since there's lots of cussing in it--the characters say "cuss" instead of the other words. "What the cuss are you doing?" for example. It was hilarious and I highly recommend it.

No quilting, but I did look at some fabric and read a quilting magazine, looking for ideas. I'm knitting my fingers sore working on that shawl--which I will post when it's finished, I promise--and have only 2 or 3 more rows to complete. Maybe tonight I'll get it done. Then, I have no excuse for procrastinating any longer on quilting.

For today, it's outside to pull weeds.

Give Away and Quilt-along

2010-08-19T10:48:00.000-05:00

Sewbernie left this button on her blog so I checked it out and decided to sign up for the giveaway and join the quilt along. You might want to as well.

The quilting giveaway and Quilt-along starts on the 21st. The Quilt-along is about FMQing which I've been doing for many years now, but I seem to always do the same patterns. I think with this quilt-along, I'll learn some new techniques and new patterns. I'm really excited about this--she says it will take less than an hour a week to do it. I'll post and let you know how it goes--as it goes along.

There's been a change in the weather...

2010-08-16T09:20:00.000-05:00

And a change in me. I'm not nearly such a grouch as I was the past week when we had terrible weather--hot, humid, cloudy, rainy and stormy every other day. Friday night, the system finally moved out of here and we had a weekend of sunshine and warm, dry weather. What a joy to be able to open up the house after a week of keeping it closed so the AC would do it's thing! I have a theory that some of us are "allergic" to hot humid weather. Don't know if that's really true, but I get physically ill when I have to function in 90 degree temps with 80% humidity. My husband and one daughter, on the other hand, absolutely love that! I think they have some kind of heat tolerance gene that I lack. Well, that's why I insist on having a swimming pool--it cools me off better than any shower or AC can, and it helps me survive in these wicked Wisconsin summers. Winter, now, is my time of the year. The cold, dry weather does wonders for my temperament, the aches of my arthritis disappear and I overall feel very, very healthy. The spouse and daughter cry and complain all winter about the cold and can never seem to get warm. I love winter sports and probably spend more time outside in the winter than I do in the summer. Snow shoveling?--bring it on! Enough of this--suffice it to say that I'm enjoying this warm dry spell and looking forward to Autumn coming soon.

This weekend I didn't do much, other than the usual housekeeping and garden chores. Eggplants are haunting me and I will spend this evening making Rigatoni with Eggplant and Sausage.

One pan to eat for dinner and two or 3 more to go into the freezer for another time. The recipe is available at foodnetwork.com. Corn is also calling me. We have friends who grow corn for us to take for free--can't pass that up--and the ears are ready for picking this week. That's tomorrow night's job--pick the corn and start getting it into the freezer and turning it into corn relish, one of my husband's favorite things. He's done about 20 qts of dill pickles so far with about 20 more coming on the cucumber vines. Yesterday he put up about 15 qts of sauerkraut--the best in the whole world, I think--so the freezer and pantry are getting full of goodness to see us through the winter.

No quilting, knitting, or other needle work this weekend--the garden takes precedent.

Update

2010-08-11T17:39:00.000-05:00

Last weekend with Lily was great! She absolutely LOVED the county fair, went on all the kids' rides, had her first sno cone, and won a toy at a carny game. Whoo Hoo! Me?I was a bit disappointed. Haven't gone to a county fair for many years and and the fairs from my childhood seemed quite a bit better and larger than this one. Is it my faulty memory or have county fairs become not much more than 4H exhibits and a carnival?

After the fair, we got home, set up the tent, hiked in the hills behind the house to get firewood and cooked our supper over a campfire. Lily's first weenie roast! She only lost one in the fire and she thought her hot dog was super! After a couple of hours in the pool to cool off, we "slept" in the tent. She slept and I tossed all night trying to get comfortable. I told Don later, my tent camping days are finally over. I've always been a tent camper--the more primitive, the better, in my opinion, but now the ground had become way too hard for me. Despite the fierce thunderstorm during the night which Lily slept through, she thinks camping is great! So I guess all told, we had a very good weekend.

Monday, I took off on a 6 hour drive to Milwaukee along with 2 co-workers, for 6 hours of training on Tuesday. Good material, but it could have been done on a webcast. It's so irritating that people in large cities have no idea how inconvenient it is for us to get there. I don't mind going but the training had better be worth it and this wasn't. I got home last night at midnight and decided to take today off.

I got green beans, broccoli and peas in the freezer, as well as blueberries from the store. Got some laundry done and am making great progress on the shawl I'm knitting. Overall, a day well spent.